It’s all about the learning!
The professional learning plan to implement blended learning in our CMSD schools incorporates the 5 key principal of effective professional learning, as it intentionally plans for significant duration and ongoing support, support during the implementation stage, active learning during the initial exposure, modeling, and specific content and grade level. Below you can take a look at the plan outline. The duration for the first cohort is 6 months of intense learning and support, and then support as needed following that time frame. Teachers will have frequent cohort meetings as well as individual coaching sessions that I facilitate. Learners will have accountability to their cohort peers and have several choices of activities and resources to engage in active learning. Videos as well as the opportunity to watch peers or even co-teach with me will serve as modeling scaffolds, and the content will be specific to the grade and or content area(s) the educator facilitates.
I plan to foster collaboration by building peer professional relationships in cohort. Connecting individuals that work with similar grade levels and or content areas will be encouraged to work together and share ideas and feedforward to each other.
The 3 Column Table below outlines who is doing what when, and this was all intentionally planned out to meet the needs of each learner. In our district, many teachers voice their frustration with initiatives constantly changing and just being thrown at them. This initiative is going to be different. Teachers will have time to collaborate, explore, share ideas, and also feel supported through the implementation process and beyond. Each phase of the 3 Column Table is broken down into more detail using UbD, to make sure every part of the plan has been thoroughly thought out and intentionally planned for each learner to experience success on their journey.
This entire professional learning plan will take 6 months minimum to implement, and has an open window of continued support, as needed. As noted in the outline below, you can see how long each section is slated to take and what resources are needed and learning activities will take place in each phase of the plan.
I chose to work on the Integration portion of my plan first, which accounts for 24.5 hours of work and learning. I utilized the UbD framework to guide the intentional planning process, ensuring the 5 principals of professional learning were addressed.
While planning the integration portion of my 3 Column Table, I included choice of video and readings to gain foundational knowledge, and coupled that with peer accountability and relationship building through online discussions and in-person opportunities for reviewing peer work and providing feedfoward. For example, the plan includes gallery walks to view peer work and “walk and talks” to share ideas and provide constructive feedforward to each other. built in are several opportunities to revise and evolve. The weekly self-evaluation rubric and goal setting will foster self-directed learning and growth, and screenshooting the rubric each week will be a wonderful reflection tool to celebrate growth and progress. Elementary educators seem to thrive off of checklists and compliments for their efforts. I plan to celebrate all growth and improvement in our weekly check-ins together. The first session will be led by me to set the tone for the course, but all classes following will be student directed and driven. I plan to facilitate and guide. I am hoping to launch this plan at the start of next school year, and by the end of the year, our first cohort will be ready to spread their wings and lead several cohorts throughout the district. The schedule and exact times are TBD due to not knowing who will participate and needing the union to agree to this plan. I am hopeful that the class can meet for an hour at 3:30pm once per week, but those details will need to be ironed out as we get closer to the launch. All of the course resources are listed and linked in the UbD pdf file above, and a few more may get added as the plan evolves and improves.
This process of zooming out with the 3 Column Table and zooming back in on the fine details of each unit or course, has enhanced my ability to plan and implement effective professional learning. Perspective at both levels is vital to ensure the plan will come to fruition and achieve the big overarching learning objective(s) because the 3 Column Table provides a structured outline to see the big picture and the UbD design template structures the actual implementation of each step or lesson. As I build out the UbD for the rest of 3 column table, the intentional implementation of blended learning in my district will be ready to launch!
Resources:
Fink, L.D. (2003). A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning.
Godin, S. (2012, Oct. 16). Stop stealing dreams: Seth Godin at tedxyouth@bsf.YouTube.
Retrieved Feb. 8, 2023, from https://youtube.be/sXpbONjV1Jc
Harapnuik, D. (2016, June 16). Mapping Your Learner’s Journey. It’s About Learning. Retrieved
February 8, 2023, from https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=6420
Standards for Professional Learning. (2019). Retrieved February 5,2023, from
https://learningforward.org/standards/
TEDxTalks. (2010, December 10). TEDxEast – Nancy Duarte uncovers common structure of
greatest communicators 11/11/2010. YouTube. Retrieved February 5, 2023, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nYFpuc2Umk