Teacher professional development insight?

Suggestions:

• 3 hours
• Give them time to create a lesson using the tool you’ve taught them
• Instead of discussion have them use a wiki to share their thoughts, post links to their lessons
• Give them the time after lunch to refine their lesson and then meet for a half hour before the end of the day to debrief

There may be some good structured lessons/exercises in Moodle.org

It’s open source community is the biggest non-commercial course management system out there.

That, with Megan’s suggestions. is exactly what we arew looking for but don’t get.

I would agree that with Tech PD doing is more important than discussing. Another thing is written instructions. After the tool/app is introduced people are functioning at different levels and as the leader is answering individual questions everyone else is sitting there waiting their turn. With an instruction sheet some people can figure out their own answers.

It might be a good idea to provide an assistant or more tech savvy person for every 4 people.

I would set this kind of agenda.

1. Preplan: Prepare instructional handouts. Ask teachers to bring ideas/resources they would use in preparing a real lesson plan.

2. Day of: Introduce/Instruct a single tool. Then pairs build a lesson plan while instructor acts as resource.

3. Assess: Lesson plans are shared with the groups or if there is not enough time to complete the lesson plan, they should be presented at the next faculty meeting. It is important that they should be complete and doable.

Common mistakes: Too many participants. Too little time. Too much information. No concrete finished product. In short, doing it as cheaply as possible.

Also don’t spend time on preliminary activities. Don’t go around the room doing introductions or talking about what participants expect. 10 people + instructer X 5 minutes = 1 hour wasted.

I, too, am getting ready to plan my summer tech PD for my teachers. I’m going to offer something similar this year to what I offered last year. Three hours a day for a week (total of 15 hours) for teachers to do what they personally need to do w/ technology. Participation is voluntary. Some teachers will choose to participate all week, others for only a day or two.

For some this will be working with me to learn a new piece of software or hardware, and then planning a project or lesson to integrate into their curriculum. For others it might mean working with grade-level partners to plan or refine technology projects, or simply spending time further exploring the resources on our intranet or the “hidden” tools they might be less familiar with in programs they use every day such as Word 2007.

Whatever individual teachers are working on, I am available to help them at any step of the way, but unless they ask for my input, I leave them alone. It’s really up to the teacher, his or her needs and level of comfort with technology.

Now, I’m in a small private school where teachers get paid to participate in summer PD. If you are in a public school and are required to touch every teacher w/ this program then obviously the logistics would be a little different. But however you approach this I do think the key to tech PD is the collaboration and sharing element, especially for tech-reluctant teachers. As much opportunity as you can provide for teachers to work together and share their plans, the better.

Also, to ensure follow-through, if you have any input on how teachers are awarded PD credits, you could add an incentive – teachers would get an additional credit if they later implement the project in their classroom, document it, and report back on it at a faculty mtg.

Good luck! I always enjoy summer tech PD!

The incentive to incorporate technology as well as other things into the classroom is every semester we have a show & tell faculty meeting where each department checks in. Individually the incentives include better evaluations and sometimes opportunities for extra resources.