Well, we didn’t see that coming! Who knew that 2020 was going to turn out this way? And so…we, leaders, pivot. We figure it out and keep moving. Some of our schools are going back to brick and mortar classrooms with heightened health and safety protocols, some are going back to partial days in school and partial days in distance learning, and some are doing distance learning only. That is a lot to figure out! But you will….because you are the kind of leaders who puts their head down and strategizes the next right step regardless of the obstacle.
One obstacle that will change as we used to know it, is professional development. Before, we could send our teachers to a PD or have an expert come in for a day to do a workshop. Gone are those days where we didn’t worry about travelling on airplanes, shaking hands, hugging, or sitting next to hundreds of people at a workshop. We have to pivot while still continuing to move the learning forward for students and adults.
Leaders still need to coach and support teachers but it is a little more tricky these days. What will we do with that? Well, I have an idea. It is something that I am working on in our school and hopefully it will help many leaders to continue the professional learning. Instead of having the experts come in or sending your teachers to the experts, consider developing some online digital courses for teachers to do in their grade teams or on their own. There are many benefits to this scenario. However, like anything, it is going to take some work. But you are not the type of leader who shies away from a challenge or hard work. That is why you are here right now, to take action and figure this all out. You will have to develop the PD or perhaps this is a great opportunity for your teacher leaders to help you and develop certain modules or lessons.
Of course, you could also purchase online pd which is a lot easier but can come at a price. However, adult learning is priceless and can be the key to relighting, renewing, and restoring your community because the value is place in them. I have a new digital course that is launching August 10, 2020 that is called Leading Through Distance Learning, Face to Face Learning and a Pandemic Using Assessment for Learning Strategies. It is a digital course that has two sections. The first section is for the leader to learn how to lead through modelling this system and then how to get the community to start taking action by measuring their own evidence of impact as they take this course. The second section is for leaders to do with teachers. It teaches the teachers how to take the actions they see their leaders modelling and put it into action in the classroom in either a distance learning or face to face classroom. Best of all the focus is making connection with your community in order to make sure that they are all doing ok with our world being the way it is right now. This course is lasting and can be used all year long and for years to come. Our school is still using this same system five years later!
However, creating your own pd is very doable as well!
There are many ways you could create your own online professional development. I have come up with some steps to help you along the way:
Step one: Brainstorm a whole bunch of topics on the type of professional development that you would like to to with your staff. The topics should come from listening to your community so they see the value in it and know what is in it for them.
Step two: Choose one topic to start with and do the research. Once you have your topic you can start to research strategies that they can take back to their classroom right away. While you are researching keep in mind how you, as a leader, could model these strategies in your meetings with the teachers as well. This allows the teacher to see it in action and not just on paper or in a powerpoint. You could also have your teacher leaders helping you with developing the information that goes into the online PD.
Step three: Write your script. Because it is online, you should have a script that you can follow to keep you on point, organized, and streamlined to be as clear as possible. Because you are not there in front of them, you need to be sure that everything you say or teach makes sense.
Step four: Build your slides. Once you have your script, you can build your slide deck to match the script.
Step five: Record your slide deck video or your personal video. Now that you have your slide deck and script you can record your voice over as you move through the slides. I recommend screencastify, loom, or screenflow for recording but there are many apps out there that you can choose from. If you choose to do a video instead then this is the time to record your video.
Step six: Create and PDFs to go with each lesson. It is always really useful to have PDFs to go with each lesson to help to guide them after the video is over. It also gives them action steps to take. Some ideas for PDFs are:
- Checklists with action steps
- Worksheets with questions and answers
- Lesson notes
- Next step ideas
- Criteria
- Summary of Strategies
- Ways to use the strategies
- Lesson templates
- Roadmaps
Step seven: Have the teacher decide on an action step from the training and give them time to practice. After the teacher has taken the course or lesson, provide strategies for them to choose one and try in their classroom. Give them time to practice the strategy with the intention of noticing the evidence of impact from using that strategy.
Step Eight: Figure out a way for the teacher to showcase evidence of impact after taking the professional development. Set the intention that the teacher will bring the learning back to the group with how it impacted their teaching craft and the learning that unfolded. Some ideas for this may be through bringing video, pictures, lesson plans, student samples, team teaching experience, conversations, etc. Set a date for them to have time to practice but then to bring their learning back to the group with the intention of teaching a colleague about their experience or struggles.
Following these steps will help you to create your own PD and keep the momentum going regardless of distance learning or brick and mortar. These steps could also be done face to face and you would just skip the recording part of it all and present it live. Regardless this is a great way to differentiate your professional development, get your teacher leader community involved, and get your teachers engaging more because you have set clear action steps with the intention of measuring evidence of impact.
Here is a FREE guide to help you if you are looking to create your own professional development lessons.
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