Making Professional Learning Stick

 

Throughout my time as an educator there have been training sessions that really stuck with me and those that were quickly forgotten.  As I begin rolling out Tech Tuesday sessions with teachers this school year, I took some time to reflect on what makes an interesting, memorable and impactful training session for me.  These are some of the questions I consider in how I provide training for teachers:

1.  What does this look like in the classroom?

2.  How can I apply what I've learned?

3.  How does this solve a problem or make my life easier?

4.  Is the information easy to follow and come back to?

Making Thinking Visible- What does it look like in the classroom?

In my recent training session with my teachers, we revisited their Gripe Jam which I spoke more about in this blog post.  They delved into brainstorming areas they are struggling with in their classroom.  It could be organization, lesson planning, lesson implementation, engagement, utilizing technology, or any other number of issues.  Each of their ideas were placed in a Google Jamboard on sticky notes.  Next they began to sort their struggles out on a continuum of more to less frustrating.  Then they looked at their sticky notes and sorted them one more time leaving them in the same order.  They sifted up the struggles that impacted more people and they sifted down the struggles with less people impacted.  All of these steps combined are making their thinking visible to me.  I can look at a glance at any of their brainstorming Jamboard pages and easily identify which struggles are more frustrating, impacting more people and which are the ones they chose to box in because they plan to focus on them...

Thinking Hats- How can I apply what I've learned?

Once we completed this sorting and sifting of information I asked teachers to think outside the box.  I have them pretend that they are wearing two hats.  

The learner hat: where they are learning the concept of sorting their struggles and filtering their ideas to narrow down their choices 

and the teacher hat: where they take what they are learning in Tech Tuesday and they think about how this could concept of sorting and filtering can be utilized in their content area classes.  

I loved what the teachers had to say when I asked them how they thought they could use this activity with their class.  One idea was to have students review before a test brainstorming all the concepts they learned and then have them sort and filter them by how comfortable they are with their understanding of each concept.  This could guide what they need to study more on before the test.  Another person shared that this could be used as a vocabulary activity where students use the continuum to show their understanding level.  

Making Connections- How does this solve a problem or make my life easier?

During my training sessions, I am specifically explaining my thinking.  I say things like "each training I give is created with the purpose... that teachers can turn it around and utilize in their classroom."  Throughout the session, I refer teachers to think again about how they can use it in their classroom.  I also demonstrate strategies I use to ensure all of my teachers are able to understand and keep up with the training session.  These strategies are founded on Universal Design for Learning framework.  Before I have my training session, I'm thinking about what roadblocks might teachers face during the training.  Am I making sure my visual learners are seeing examples?  Do I have written instructions for them to refer back to?  Have a repeated the steps and pointed out how to use the tools for my teachers who haven't used the tools before?  Have I clearly expressed the expectations?

I plan for all of these questions, but I also make this thinking visible by saying during my training sessions things like: a great strategy to use to ensure your student understand the expectations is to provide written directions and to read those directions aloud to them.  One support scaffold that is often missed is teachers/ trainers read aloud the directions and show them for a moment, then they turn the students/ participants loose to the the activity with no way to access the directions again.  I like to tell my teachers this: for myself as a learner, even though I was listening closely to the directions, the moment you turn me loose to complete the assignment I want to be able to refer back to the directions again.  This is a small change that can make a big impact.  When it is first pointed out, teachers may not even realize they are putting the directions out of sight once they have students start an activity.  Making my thinking visible enables them to see how it can make their jobs easier when they think ahead to anticipate the roadblocks their students might face when completing the assignment.    

Accessibility- Is the information easy to follow and come back to?

When it comes to a training session or even a class activity, it can be a juggling act to ensure you are providing hands on opportunities to participate in collaboratives spaces such as Jamboard and Slides while also providing access to important reading materials and resources.  It can easily become overwhelming, the last thing I want to do is jump all over the place and not have my participants be able to keep up. I knew I needed to have a place my participants can go back to and reference the resources later.  What I found was creating a Google Site for my PD sessions has made the experience user friendly, aesthetic and organized.  This week I was able to roll this out with teachers and it made my training session move forward smoothly, kept my participants focused on the right section, and provided a place they could go back to later to revisit what we learned.  

How are you making professional learning stick?  How does this look different with one to one devices, virtual and blended learning and during a pandemic?