Professionals Can't Develop Without a Growth Mindset

Many teachers seek opportunities to intellectually enrich themselves and to expand their pedagogy. Being a life-long learner is a integral component to being a good teacher. We invest our time, talent, energy, and money in our personal and professional growth. We are intrinsically rewarded for these investments, our colleagues are enriched by the atmosphere created when the learning is shared, and our students' learning is enhanced by our risk-taking and forward-thinking pedagogy.

In order to compel teachers to continue their learning, they are mandated to attend professional development or professional learning sessions. Yesterday was election day which means that in many places it was also a day designated as a teacher professional development day. The electoral and school calendars have another thing in common: election day and the end of the first marking period very closely coincide. Which means when teachers are under pressure to wrap up the marking period with whatever grading obligations that poses for them, they are also being told to stop what they are doing and spend a day learning.

So my question is: do teachers bring to these mandated sessions the same growth mindset they bring to the voluntary ones? And for those who do not invest voluntarily in their ongoing learning, how can the mandated sessions be valuable to them? How do we grow a school culture that values professional learning in all its forms?

This is not a rhetorical question. I would love to hear people's insights. There are easy answers like the PD has to be relevant to them. It has to be differentiated. It has to be authentic with opportunities for teachers to apply the learning to their curricula. So, consider a PD day that involves choice -- several workshops based on a survey of faculty needs and the teachers can choose which to attend. Add to that sessions that include time to work with colleagues to apply learning to current student work and upcoming units and a space dedicated to practicing new technology and collaborating with colleagues practicing and applying the same new tools. Lastly, a follow-up hour of professional learning time the same week is set aside for them to work in their curricular teams to continue applying the new learning to upcoming instruction and assessment. Do you get a relevant, differentiated, authentic professional learning experience? I think so.

If some of the teachers' feedback tells you otherwise, what would you do differently? And, how would you continue to encourage your colleagues who had a positive, productive learning experience (despite the distraction of the end of the marking period and their grading concerns) to keep learning and not be discouraged by the day's detractors and distractions?

Another PD Session: Student Discussions and BYOD

I have been pondering how to provide my colleagues who attend the sessions I am facilitating with the materials and prompts that will guide their work. For the Assessment and BYOD workshop that I discussed in my last post, I decided to organize all of the materials in a Google  Site so that participants can have easy access to all of the materials.

That same day, I will be facilitating a second session on a different topic. The focus of my second workshop will be on managing classroom discussions in a BYOD environment. This is our school's first year with BYOD so it is a focus of our professional learning. Furthermore, we are also committed to increasing personalization of learning for the students. I am working to keep those two goals as threads in my workshop. I hope that participants finish the sessions empowered to harness tech for more student-centered learning experiences.

The sessions are each 90 minutes long. For discussion, I have divided the time into two segments. In the first segment, we will examine whole-class discussion protocols; in the second segment, we will consider student-managed small group discussions. Participants will be immersed in the discussion protocols were are examining and use the technology that students can use to support and document their interactions and reflections.

Agenda for the Whole Class Discussion segment:
(Rubric)

Round 1

• Select volunteers to chat in the fishbowl
• Review Fishbowl Norms: only those in the center can talk; all participants can contribute to the chat room.
• Everyone will join TodaysMeet chat room and see this greeting: "Welcome to the chat! Enter your comments here. Remember you are limited to 140 chars. Talk to each other by using @ protocol. I am @JackieW"
• Watch this Michael Jordan commercial

• Discuss: “What is a growth mindset, and why do I need one? How can my students develop one?”

Round 2

• New group goes into fishbowl
• New question introduced into chat: What does it mean to describe an assessment or classroom experience as "authentic”?

Closure:

• Everyone post “big takeaway” in the chat; start post with BT
• Archive chat transcript as a Google doc; share for reflection
• Demonstrate Ctrl-F, search for user name to see where posted

Questions for Reflection:

• I used to think... and now I think...
• If I had been in the fishbowl I might have said...
• One thing I wanted to say but didn't was...
• The most important understanding I am taking away from this discussion is... and it is important because..
• The most insightful comment I heard today was... and it was insightful because...

Agenda for the Small Group Discussion segment:

Discussion Protocols:

• Each group member has a different role
• For each role, there is a padlet or slide for collecting ideas
• Readers populate the padlet or slide assigned to their role
• Readers can draw upon the postings of classmates when discussing in small groups

Reading Roles: (text: In the Beginning... Was the Command Line, "MGBs, Tanks, and Batmobiles" by Neal Stephenson)

• Questioner: what would you ask the people in the passage if you could? Why?
• Connector: of what are you reminded when you read this passage? (book, movie, tv, current event…) Why?
• Wonderer: what do you want to know about this situation? Why?
• Predictor: what do you think the outcome of the conflict will be? Explain.
• Passage Picker: select the passage you think is key to understanding the text. Explain its importance.

Jigsaw:

• Assign everyone in the group the same role
• Read and share ideas
• Collect ideas on a padlet assigned to their role
• Rearrange groups so that each new group has someone from each role
• Discuss

Asynchronous Discussion Extensions:

• Students can post to a blog with their understandings derived from their reading role
• Students can Skype or Google Hangout with other students discussing the same issue or topic

Instead of another Google Site, for the Discussion session I created a series of Padlets. This way, there is a materials reference for participants to follow as the session unfolds, a collection of resources to which they can return after the session. And, if anyone attends both sessions I am facilitating, s/he also sees different technology being modeled for activity management and materials delivery.

Professional Learning about Assessment and BYOD

I am preparing to facilitate two professional learning sessions for my new colleagues. Each will last 90 minutes. The first will focus on assessment in a BYOD environment. The other will focus on student discussions (small group and whole class) also with a focus on how technology can support and improve these student interactions.

Here are my non-negotiables as I develop these session plans:

1. Pedagogy is the focus, technology plays a vital supporting role.
2. As facilitator I will walk the walk, i.e. I will model, not just describe, the pedagogy.
3. The instructional strategies and technology applications will have cross-disciplinary relevance and utility.
4. Everyone will leave prepared to implement new pedagogy AND tools in their next lessons or units in ways that help students connect intellectually and experientially with the learning.

I have just about completed my outlines of each session. I still have a couple of choices to make, but need time now to let everything percolate. And it was during this time that my daughter, also a high school student, took the PSATs. The evening after she sat for that test (a phrase that speaks volumes about the testing experience) she was describing to me a growing #PSAT response being spread through social media. So I captured her on video describing what was happening. Then I paired that video with pictures of student assessments that I took while students were working around me in the library and snapshots of the social media posts. Add a little music and this is what emerged:

I am planning to use it as the ignite for my assessment session. I like it because it doesn't point fingers at any current assessment practices by my colleagues who are all incredibly dedicated, hyper-intelligent educators. It shows how students react to standardized (non-personalized) experiences. It also shows how students' networks are national or global, they default to digital modes of communication when they care about what they are discussing -- even when they have been told not to discuss it. Wow. They are responding to a standardized experience with personal insights that are shared with a global community in ways that are entirely digital. Doesn't that invite us to rethink how we assess the students in our classes?!

I'm curious if you see these ideas in my video... I still have time to improve it. Thanks!