Modeling-based Professional Learning COLLAPSE
“When they think someone else is responsible for their learning, they don’t take responsibility and give minimal effort” (Chicago Ideas, 2015). Out of all of the readings and videos we examined this week, this quote by Peter Gray during his 2015 presentation titled Mother Nature’s Pedagogy: Insights from Evolutionary Psychology stuck with me the most. He made this statement specifically in reference to children taking responsibility for their own education. But this sentiment can be applied to learners of any age, including the teachers for which we will be providing professional learning opportunities. This gave me a lot to think about as I consider the details of how I will format my professional learning sessions. How will I provide opportunities for my fellow teachers to feel that sense of responsibility and control in their own professional learning that is necessary in order to keep them satisfied in their work so that a happy and highly functioning learning environment (Beatty, 2000) can be developed and maintained on our campus. My thoughts instantly went to the COVA model. I want to individualize my flipped classroom professional learning sessions in order to achieve this type of learning environment. To begin the professional learning experiences, I want teachers to choose their own content areas of concern, the types of technologies they would like to use to address those concerns and then, with my collaboration and guidance, develop their own plan for how to effectively utilize their chosen technology in a flipped classroom format in order to address their content concerns. Right now, I am thinking of creating a teaser commercial about individualized professional learning and sending it out to staff in order to spark interest. Attached to this e-mail would also be a Google Form that allows teachers to choose which technology tools they are interested in using with their class to address content area concerns and the week they would like to have an initial one-on-one meeting. This manner of self-selecting professional learning opportunities provides teachers with choice and ownership of their learning experience. Once their responses have been collected, I can then begin immersing these teachers in the flipped learning model by emailing them a flipped learning introductory video prior to our initial meeting. In this e-mail, teachers would also be instructed to take notes and write down any lingering questions or concerns they have about the video’s content. During our video follow up meeting, we will discuss the questions and concerns they have and begin coming up with a plan for how to address their main academic concerns using flipped learning. Right now, I am planning to conduct these video follow up meetings every 2 weeks so that teachers can maintain a voice in their professional learning experience and meet their specific classroom needs. The time between each meeting will be when the authentic learning experiences will take place. During this time, I would model the video concept for the teachers with their respective classes and observe them implementing the week’s concept with their class. We would then have an observation follow up meeting to discuss the lesson successes and areas for improvement to implement next time. This cycle of professional learning will continue until a teacher is able to effectively and independently implement the flipped classroom model with their class. Throughout this individual professional learning experience, I also acknowledge the importance of teachers feeling that they are a part of a community of colearners as they learn this new instructional format. Therefore, I am also considering creating either a Google Group or Group Chat for all of the teachers who signed up for the professional learning sessions. This would provide teachers with additional support as they learn from one another by sharing ideas, asking questions, and providing assistance. As I think about the possibility of changing the format of professional learning to a more individualized format, I am becoming more excited! If you have any ideas of tweaks I can make to improve on this plan, please feel free to leave a comment.
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