Agency PD – A First Attempt

A few weeks ago I shared my thinking about how best to structure professional development focused around student agency, and this past weekend I had a chance to test it out! I spent the day with an amazing group of passionate and dedicated educators all committed to upping the amount of voice, choice and ownership in the work they do to support their learners in their specific role.

Here is how it went…

The Before:

The first thing I knew I needed to do was get to know them as learners. So I sent out a quick Google Form that helped me begin to understand who they are and what they are hoping for from our time together.

The results were very informative and helped me put together a day of professional learning about agency tailored to their needs.

From there I focused on building a workshop where they were able to not only learn about learner agency, but learn through experiencing their own agency as learners. All of my planning and decisions were guided by the question, “How can I help them learn about student agency” instead of focusing on “How can I teach them about student agency”.

Before the day of the workshop I also spent some time putting together a virtual learning space, our own Google Classroom, to help distribute documents and resources.

I knew that not all participants were comfortable on Google Classroom, so I insured that there were plenty of other options and avenues for accessing resources and using some of the templates.

For example, sending out links via email:

And having shorty links visible when they arrived the day of the workshop:

The During:

When participants arrived the day of, I made sure they all had access to the presentation slides – which were editable – as there were a few activities where everyone would need to contribute thoughts and ideas.

First we started with a simple activity to help them connect with each other, the topic of the workshop and their own experience as a student.

Then I was transparent about the structure of the workshop – Choose, Act, Reflect – and my thinking behind it.

The “Choose” Portion of the day…

To help them self-assess where they are in their own journey of understanding and supporting student agency, I used a Gradual Increase of Independence (adapted from the original design by @orenjibuta)

Next I guided them in using the data from their own self-assessment to create their own personalized success criteria for the day

Then, we co-constructed a menu about documenting learning – starting with the “why”, and moving to possible “hows” and “whats”

Everyone took a turn to share how they were planning to document their learning throughout the day, and it was so great to see so many different approaches!

After that, it was time for them to plan their day! I took some time to give them an overview of all the different possible options that could support their learning throughout the day.

I briefly explained what my optional workshops were about and how the conferences would work:

Who the Skype experts were:

I helped them centralize the things they might want to discuss with one another:

I previewed the resource document that I built for them.

And then… they were off planning!!! (using their success criteria and self-assessment to inform the choices they made about their learning)

The “Act” Portion of the day…

Optional Workshops:

1. The “Why” Behind Student Agency

First we started with an opportunity for them to tune into their own understanding of what they think student agency is.

Next we moved into a “Tug of War” to help them debate and discuss a variety of underlying beliefs, assumptions and philosophies connected to agency.

Finally, we did Chalk Talk to help them engage with some provocative stimuli to poke and provoke their thinking and emotions further. (Warning – some stimuli are quite extreme!)

2. Transferring Decision into the Hands of Learners

First, I had everyone brainstorm all the decisions they make in their role as an educator

Then, I had them use a quote from the Empower book to challenge them to think about which of those decisions learners “should” or “could” be making themselves.

Then I invited them to visit other groups and leave some feedback to push each other’s thinking a little further.

Finally, I had them reflect on any shifts in their thinking as a result of the activity.

3. Self-Reflection and Planning for Action

First I introduced a few self-reflection tools, to help them see where they are already respecting and supporting student agency and also where there might be some space to make some changes in their practice to work towards even more respect and support for student agency.

I used a sketchnote from @terSonya

and a questionnaire that I developed

Once they had some time to engage with the tools, I supported them in using their self-reflection to develop a personal action plan

Optional Guided Groups or Conferences:

I only had one conference slot filled about agency vs. the curriculum. We sat and chatted for 15 minutes about questions, challenges, ideas and resources.

Skypes with experts:

I was so fortunate to have 4 amazing educators donate some of their weekend to support the learning of people in the workshop.

@bondclegg chatted with MYP and DP educators about how to up the agency within and around program restrictions

@hktans chatted with leaders and administrators about how to support the development of teachers when it comes to understanding agency and also how to bend and break rules in order to re-imagine what school could be

@ms_AmandaRomano shared her own personal journey as an experienced educator unlearning, learning and relearning how to support student agency as a classroom teacher

Stephen Flett chatted with educators about how learning support can function within a system that supports more student agency

Collaborative Conversations:

There was LOTS of connecting, chatting, dialoguing, brainstorming and challenging

Independant Inquiry:

There was also lots of personal inquiry into the resource document

The “Reflect” Portion of the day…

When we all came back together at the end of the day, I guided them through a formative self-assessment where they were able to choose how best to assess their personalized success criteria to know where they currently are and where they need to go next

Then we spent some time collectively brainstorming the “why”, “how” and “what” of reflection

and everyone chose the style and content of reflection that was most useful and comfortable for them. It was great to see such a wide range of approaches to reflection! Everything from painting, writing, sketching, talking, sleeping… to even graphing!

Then we spent a few minutes talking about how the learning doesn’t have to end…

How fears are normal…

And how leaving your comfort zone often leads to something amazing!

Finally, before they left, I asked if they could share their honest feedback with me about the day. I wanted to make sure I was honouring their voice as learners!

The After:

When I got home, I read through the feedback:

Reading through their feedback was so helpful. It helped me reflect on what parts of the workshop worked really well, and also some parts of the workshop I need to revise for next time.

As I was reading through the “wishes” I noticed that there were many people who felt that two things were missing from the workshop:

• More information about the approach myself and my team take (Studio 5)
• Tangible strategies for supporting student agency (voice, choice and ownership)

At first I started to go down the path of regret and all the shulda, coulda, wouldas…. but then I realized that  just because the workshop was over, didn’t mean that my support for their learning had to end! So I decided to take action and respond to what their feedback was telling me.

I made two Google Slide presentations (linked above) – one to address each area that seemed to be missing from the workshop. And I sent those presentations to the workshop participants via our Google Classroom and email.

Now I can feel a little bit better that I honoured their voice as learners, and took action to respond to their needs… even if it was technically “after the workshop”.

My reflections….

• overall, it was a really great day
• learning through agency is essential in order to understand agency
• empowering educators to understand themselves as learners and where they are on their own journey helps the learning extend beyond the hours of a workshop
• investing time in the “before” and “after” really helped me honour their voice as learners
• this structure created a really relaxed, comfortable vibe for the day
• the medium IS the message

How do you support educators in developing their understanding of student agency?

What feedback do you have for me as a workshop planner/facilitator in order to better meet the needs of my learners?

APPENDIX (added to the original post)

The Monday after this workshop I received the following email from one of the participants:

What a great feeling to see that learning from the workshop lead to action that resulted in happy, successful teachers and students!!!

My plan for a more fair and free place to learn…

Yesterday I shared my thoughts and reflections about my own practice creating a democratic community in the classroom and I promised to share my plan for next year- once I had one. Well, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it and as a result a plan has started to take shape, so here are my initial ideas, as promised!

Classroom Set-up

In the past I would spent the summer coming up with a blueprint for my classroom set-up and then during the week before students would arrive, I would spend countless hours setting it all up on my own. This year I plan to hold off on any classroom set-up until the first day of school. Once the students arrive and attendance has been taken, we can come together for the first time as a community and together decide how we want our learning space to be set-up. From there I am hoping we can break off into task-forces (classroom library, physical set-up, boards, resources and manipulates, school supplies etc.) where I can support students in coming up with a plan, putting that plan into action and then reflecting on how things went. I have to be prepared to let go, allow the process to unfold and resist the urge to jump in and rescue or veto. Overtime, I think the natural consequences of any design flaws will appear and as a community we can come back as a group and discuss what is working and what might need to change to better serve the needs of our learning community.

Systems and Routines

This will be the hardest for me. Every year that I have taught, I have started the year with a clearly laid of plan for every routine imaginable within the teaching day. This year, I plan to come up with these systems with my students. As a community, we can brainstorm all the times in the day it would be beneficial to have a routine, and then discuss what routines they might have used in other classes. From there we can discuss the pros and cons of different approaches and vote on the ones we want to try. I think it would be helpful at this point to document the why, how and what of each routine in a visible spot somewhere in the room – perhaps with some criteria for how we will know it is working, and clues for when we might need to revisit and refine our plans.

Community Building 

Obviously it is essential at the beginning of a new school year to build a sense of community and help students get to know each other. Similar to classroom set-up and classroom routines, this has been something I have spent hours in the summer planning – to the point that when I started a new school year, the first five day plans were fully filled out and ready to go! This fall I would like to develop this alongside my students. I plan to start with the why – and stimulate a discussion about why it is important to build relationships with the people in our community. From there we can dive into the question – how do humans build relationships? Hopefully this provides a long list of potential activities that we can use throughout the week to build a strong community.

Schedule

In the past I have always built our class schedule alone – without the input or ideas of my students. This year I’d like to try and build it with them. I have been given a schedule template (which accounts for all my specialist classes) but aside from those specified times I plan to leave the rest blank until the students arrive. When the students arrive I’d like to invite them to help build our class schedule. In order to make informed decisions, I think it would be important to first inquire into learning – how do people learn, why do people learn, how do other schools and classes schedule their learning. I also think at this point it would be important to be transparent about our limits and boundaries with regards to curriculum and programming. As an IB school that has adopted the Common Core, I think it is important for students to inquire into “what” they are supposed to learn and also “how” they are supposed to learn. Once students are familiar with what they are supposed to learn in Grade 4, how they are supposed to learn as IB students along with what options are out there for structuring a school day – then we can work together to design a schedule that meets our needs. Perhaps students will breakout into groups or work on their own to come up with a proposed schedule and then we can vote on which one, we as a community, like best.

Homework

In previous years as a classroom teacher I have decided what is for homework, why it is for homework and when it is for homework. When I started to think about going back in the classroom I decided that there would be no homework ever. Now that I think about that, I have realized that either way I am deciding something on the students behalf – which I would like to avoid. Instead of a blanket decision for the entire class one way or another, I have decided to open it up to a personal and family decision. Again, in order to make informed decisions I think it would be important to inquire into the different perspectives around homework (student, parent, teacher, administrator, research etc.) and share those discoveries with the parents community. From there each student, along with their parents, can decide if they want homework. Then, I can support the students who have opted for homework to come up with a personal plan – starting with why, then working out the how and what.

Conflict Resolution

When you force 24 humans to spend 5 days a week, 7 hours a day together in one room, conflict is bound to occur. And in the past when conflict has happened, I have been the judge, the jury, and the mediator. I have had a plan for how I would deal with conflicts in the classroom, but this year I want students to not only be part of the decision, but also part of the actual processes once they are decided. At first I was going to impose a model of “council meetings” like they have at Free School, shown in this documentary from minute 23-32. But then I realized making that decision on my own for them, was just as un-democratic. So instead I’d like to discuss as a class, how humans in the real world solve conflicts. I’m hoping this leads to discussion of strategies for small conflicts and also options for when people with unresolved conflicts look for extra support form the community (i.e.. mediators, councils, town halls, judiciary committees etc.). We can inquire into how humans solve conflict in the real world, then we can see how schools have adopted these practices and then finally decide as a community which one(s) we would like to have as options when conflicts arise.

Goal Setting 

Usually the week before school starts I am exhausted from setting up the classroom and planning the first week of school….but since I won’t be doing any of that this year without my students I am anticipating a lot of unused time on my hands. In thinking about building a democratic classroom community, it is not only important that students have a voice, but also that parents have a voice. So I think a great use of my free time would be to invite parents in to meet with me for a pre-school year conference. I would love to sit down with parents and ask them what their goals are for their child for the year and what they would like from me in order to support those goals. I would also love to ask them to tell me about their child’s needs, interests, skills and passions. I think this would be a really great to lay the foundation for a collaborative partnership with my students’ families and also a great way to show that their voice, knowledge, opinion and perspectives are not only welcome, but also valued.

…

Thinking in this way has been a huge challenge for me. I am still very inclined to come up with these plans on my own during the summer and I actually have to force myself to stop, but becoming aware of those tendencies has helped me see more clearly the power structures that have existed in my previous classrooms. I am really excited to take this new approach and I am hopeful that the time invested to have these conversations, conduct these inquires and democratically make these decisions will lead to a really powerful and productive learning community. I know as the school year gets underway, I will need to think about how to democratically approach things like curriculum, units, assessment and reporting… but for now, I am happy with my plan in these seven aforementioned areas. And, as always, I will report back and let you know how it goes!

How do you plan to establish a more democratic classroom this school year?

How do you plan to ensure your students’ voices are equal to yours?

How democratic is your classroom?

I am currently in a summer course called Alternative Approaches to Schooling – which is BLOWING my mind – with concepts of free-schooling, willed-curriculum, unschooling, holistic education, critical pedagogy and democratic education. We have also been reading an amazing book called Tuning Points, which chronicles the personal journeys of 35 education revolutionaries.

All of this new knowledge is provoking my own thinking about my plans for next year. Am I helping to develop the whole child? Will my students experience freedoms and personal liberties? What structures of power will exist?

And the question that has been circling my mind the most…

How democratic will my classroom be? 

I used to think my approach to teaching was very democratic and that I helped to set up a community of learners where students had ample voice and choice…. but the more I have read, thought, discussed and watched real examples of democratic classrooms, the more I am beginning to wonder. Schools like Summerhill and Windsor House are living breathing examples of how trusting children to participate in real and important decisions can be quite magical. Watching a student-led “council meeting” from minute 23-32 on this documentary shows just how powerful true democratic processes can be in the classroom.

I think back to my pages and pages of detailed classroom layouts that I would sketch in the summer, showing exactly where every piece of furniture would be, all to be set up before any student stepped foot into the classroom…

I think of my pages and pages of detailed systems and routines for being quite, moving spots, going to the bathroom, starting the day, ending the day, cleaning up, packing up, solving problems that I would plan on my own and train students to follow during the first few weeks of school…

I think of all the “community meetings” where I controlled what was discussed, how it was discussed and who participated in the discussion and when….

And I’m feeling like, perhaps, my classrooom was psuedo-democractic at best. Where I always had the final voice and veto and I would carefully decide what decisions and plans students were allowed to participate in.

This year I would like to try and do better. I would like to try and become a truly democratic community, where students and I make plans and decisions together. Where all of our votes count for one. Where students are trusted with real responsibility to make real decisions that actually matter. Where the classroom looks and feels and functions more like the real world.

How? I have no idea yet… but when I figure it out I’ll be sure to share it with you here! 

In your classroom and school, are you teaching about democracy… or through democracy?

How much have you planned  for next year without your students?

A Model for a Year of Personalized Professional Learning – A Dream

During this past year I have blogged about our first attempt at a half day of Personalized Professional Learning, then I wrote about our second iteration of Personalized Professional Learning. Now the big question… what’s next?

I think the next step is turning this model of PPL into the basis for a year long PD plan.

This is the time of year that school teams are meeting to design professional development action plans for next year. If it were up to me, I would design the structures and systems to allow for a whole year of personalized professional learning. Usually, I blog about ideas I have tried and put into practice. This post will be the opposite. It will be about an idea – in the earliest phases of conception – that is purely hypothetical. At this stage, simply a vision. Nothing more. Yet.

So here is my vision. I’d love to know what you think!

The start of the year – tuning in:

Before a classroom teacher introduces a new unit on body systems, or fractions, or procedural writing, they (should) first tune into what their students already know and already can do. Why should planning for professional development be any different? Before any administrator or school leader even thinks about teaching/training/developing their staff in a specific area – inquiry, assessment, strategies for language development – they too should tune into what their teachers already know and can do. This is not only important diagnostic assessment data for leaders, but equally important to help teachers become explicitly aware of what they already know and can do. But how? I have a few ideas…

1. A professional learning time capsule – Many teachers use the idea of time capsule to help students’ tune into what they already know. Why couldn’t the same diagnostic strategy be used for teachers? Administrators and leadership teams could take their school improvement plan goals and IB action plan goals and create an open-ended diagnostic assessment where teachers reflect on what they already know and can do as it relates to the prioritized topics of professional development for that year.
2. A professional self-assessment –  For each area of the time capsule, teachers could indicate on a spectrum (beginning, developing, competent, extended) where they think their professional knowledge and practice lies 
3. Personalized professional learning objectives – After completing the time capsule and assessing what they already know and can do, teachers can look for potential areas of growth in their own professional development within the context of school chosen areas of focus. These self-identified areas for growth could then be turned into personalized professional learning objectives – or what is commonly known in adult education as learning contracts.  If based on the time capsule and self-assessment, a teacher realized they have beginning understanding of inquiry-based teaching they would then create personalized professional learning objective about inquiry-based teaching.
4. Personalized professional success criteria – Once teachers have systematically identified their own areas for professional growth – based on the areas of professional development the school has prioritized for that year – and have created a list of personalized professional learning objectives, they could then develop their own success criteria, to specifically describe what the successful attainment of each learning objective would look like.  Creation of success criteria would answer the question, “How will you know you have achieved your learning objective?”               
5. Personalized professional learning conference – If a teacher was asking a student to complete a self-assessment it would be followed up by a conference where the teacher reviews and reflects on the student’s assessment with the student. A teacher’s self-assessment should be no different. After teachers have self-assessed their learning time capsule, set their own learning objectives and developed their own success criteria they could meet with an administrator or a member of the leadership team to review their personalized professional learning plan. This is where leaders can review the time capsule and have conversations with teachers to uncover misconceptions and gaps in professional knowledge that teachers may not have identified for themselves.   For example, if a teacher has self-assessed that they have a competent understanding and skill set to support English Language Learners, but through reviewing the time capsule and having a conversation the leader thinks there is more room to grow, the leader can suggest the teacher adds it to their personalized professional learning plan.

If this seems like a long, time consuming process that’s because it is. Tuning in is not something to be rushed in order to get on with the learning. Like Kath Murdoch says, it IS the learning. Taking the time to build a diagnostic assessment tool around the school improvement plan goals and IB action plan goal, then allowing staff to self-assess against those areas and become aware of their own learning and then having teachers meet with a school leader to discuss their personalized professional learning plan are essential steps in setting the stage for the rest of the year of personalized professional learning.

Throughout the year – Finding out, Sorting out, Going further:

Once you have the personalized learning plans set, you can use those as the basis for ALL professional development times throughout the year – after school meetings, half days, full days… any time! How, you ask? I have a few ideas…

1. Selecting a focus or two – Before a professional development day or afternoon, it would be important to help teachers select one or two areas of their professional learning that they would like to focus on. We have done this two different ways during our first iteration of PPL and our revised model of PPL and both proved to be effective. If teachers already had a list of personalized professional learning objectives, they would only need to refer to the list and choose the one or two areas they felt most passionate about.             
2. Planning in response to learning – Once teachers have identified what they want to learn about it, leaders could collect data about how teachers want to learn. Personal inquiry? Collaborative inquiry? Workshops? Meeting with an instructional coach? Gathering data about how teachers want to learn can then be used to build a structure for a day or afternoon that supports personalized professional learning.                           
3. Let the learning happen – Once the day is planned and teachers know what they want to learn about and how they want to learn… get out of the way and let the learning happen!
4. Assessing the learning –Once the day or afternoon is finished, teachers could refer back to their success criteria and reflect on whether they have met their targeted learning objectives of the day, or whether they need to continue to pursue further learning opportunities.
5. Repeat – The next time another scheduled PD day rolls around again, have teachers refer back to their personalized professional learning objectives select one or two objectives they would like to start working on (or continue working on), plan the structure of the day in response to the needs and preferences of the teachers, let the learning happen and then build in time for assessment of progress.

This process could be used every time there is the opportunity for professional development. Once the systems and structures are in place, there is minimal planning that needs to be done by the leadership team. Isn’t that the sweet spot of inquiry – low prep for “teachers”, high engagement, ownership and learning for “students”? There are also some great opportunities for formative assessment and feedback throughout the year. Bring out the time capsules half way through the year and have teachers add, change and remove things to better reflect what they know and can do now. Or have a mid-point conference with the same leader as the beginning of the year discuss progress and growth.

At the end of the year – Making conclusions:

By the end of the year, there should be so much growth and progress for each and every teacher to reflect on, celebrate and share! Wondering how? I have a few ideas…

1. Revisit their professional learning time capsule – Provide all teachers with either a blank copy of the same time capsule you used at the beginning of the year, or the actual time capsule they filled in and let them update their time capsule to reflect all that they have learned over the year. This will be a great way to help make their learning visible.
2. Self-assessment – For each area of the time capsule, teachers could indicate where they are now with regards to their professional knowledge and practice. Hopefully this would allow teachers to see that in certain areas they have moved themselves along the spectrum. Teachers could also reflect on their success criteria and evaluate whether or not they have met the success criteria for each of their personalized professional learning objectives. If there is criteria that is not met (yet), that could be a great starting point for the following year’s personalized professional learning plan!
3. Share and celebrate – Provide teachers with time to consolidate their learning and decide what they want to share with their learning community. Using the RAFT format can be quite helpful to allow teachers to choose what they want to share and how they want to share it. Sounds like the potential for a mini teacher Exhibition!

I’m a firm believer that every single thing we expect from teachers in the work they do with their learners – assessment, inquiry, differentiation, personalization, learner voice and choice, reflection, ownership, action – should be purposefully modeled in the work leaders do with their learners. I think this model presents a way to allow for all of the aforementioned best practices, while at the same time working towards school-wide goals and objectives. Teachers are doing a great job helping their students reach standardized curricular goals and objectives in inquiry-based, differentiated ways. School leaders can and should be doing the same in their models of professional development.

I realize that I have referred to the learners as “teachers” throughout this blog post. I think this model could work for an entire school community. Every staff member – counselor, TA, coordinator, administrator, coach – could participate in all of these activities and develop themselves as professionals. In fact, the leadership of a school should be intentionally modelling this process for the staff and should be positioning themselves as the lead learners.

What am I missing?

Where are the gaps and weaknesses in this model of PD?

How could I refine this vision to further support teachers as learners while meeting school goals and objectives? 

 

Personalized Professional Learning – Take Two!

A few months ago, my partner in crime and I had a crazy idea to design a model of Personalized  Professional Learning that would hopefully model for our staff, what we expect to see in their classrooms. Our first attempt at PPL went really well and we received awesome feedback from our staff – but we wanted to challenge ourselves to reflect, refine and improve the model further.

Our biggest area of self-identified growth was linking everyone’s personalized learning to our School Improvement Plan goals and our PYP Action plan goals. When reflecting on our first iteration of PPL, we realized we had modelled open-inquiry. We asked our staff “What do you want to learn about” and we structured an afternoon to support those goals. However,  open-inquiry is often a luxury teachers -and we’ve come to discover – administrators do not have. Teachers have curriculum goals that students need to meet and administrators have school improvement plan and IB program action plan goals that staff need to meet. Thus bringing to light our challenge when designing the second iteration of PPL – how can we design a half day of personalized professional learning that is inquiry-based, differentiated, built on learner voice and choice… but still guides our staff towards meeting our school and program goals?

Here is how we went about it:

Step 1 – Rethinking and reorganizing topics of learning interests

Last time, our staff collectively built a learning menu that listed many different topics 21st Century teachers are learning about – maker space, play, e-portfolios, etc.

We realized that many of those topics ALREADY contribute to our School Improvement Plan (SIP) goals and IB Action Plan (IBAP) goals – we just needed to make the connections more explicit. So our 8 person leadership team sat down and re-organized the menus by SIP goals and IBAP goals. This resulted in new learning menus that had all the same staff-selected topics of interest, but organized in a more purposeful way.

Step 2 – Reflecting on our last afternoon of PPL 

At our school, we advocate for “no secret teacher business”, which means we also need to model “no secret leadership business”. So we were honest, vulnerable and transparent with our staff. We openly reflected on both the strengths an areas of growth of our first attempt at PPL. We admitted that we had used a model of open inquiry, and we were clear that next time we wanted to implement a model that was more guided and informed by our SIP and IBAP. To get our staff to begin to think of PPL in this way, we did an activity where everyone reflected on what they learned about during our first attempt at PPL and tried to retroactively find a connection to our School Improvement Plan or PYP Action Plan. We posted goals from our SIP and IBAP around the room and gave stickers to all staff to post based on goals that connected to what they had learned about on our last half day.

We shared with our staff, that even though it was great that so much of our learning accidentally contributed to our SIP and IBAP, this time we wanted to ensure that our PPL purposefully contributed to our school and program goals.

Step 3 – Purposefully planning for our upcoming half day of PPL

Similar to last time, we wanted to give our staff some time to think about what they would learn, how they would learn and how they would share their learning for our upcoming half day – the difference being this time, we wanted their “what” to be linked to either a School Improvement Plan goal or PYP Action Plan goal. In order to do this, we used an after school staff meeting to give staff time with our newly organized learning menus to think about how they might to spend  their upcoming half day. Each staff member took a few small colour squares and wrote down what they wanted to learn, how they wanted to learn and how they planned to share their learning with others.

Then, they had to post their squares on bulletin boards that we had divided up based on our School Improvement Plan and PYP Action plan.

This allowed everyone on staff to not only be purposeful about what they wanted to learn and how it contributes to school and program goals, but it was also a great way to allow everyone to see what everyone else was interested in learning about on the upcoming half day.

Step 4 -Planning in response to learning

Similar to last time, our leadership team wanted to plan the structure of the half day based on the learning needs and interests of the staff. In order to do this, we looked at our bulletin boards and recorded how staff wanted to learn and what specifically they wanted to learn about.

We analyzed the data, specifically paying attention to numbers and trends in order to figure out how best to structure our half day of personalized professional learning. This approach revealed that most of our staff was interested in personal inquiry and collaborative inquiry and some of our staff was interested in workshops, mainly about math, literacy and technology. This allowed us to build a structure for our half day that was representative of our learners’ needs and interests.

Step 5 – Let the learning happen

On our half day, we gathered as a whole staff to review the structure of the day, review our essential agreements and set personal goals.

Then we just stepped back and let the learning unfold. It was amazing to see some staff attend workshops, some staff inquiring collaboratively and other staff pursuing  areas of personal exploration.

OF COURSE, we kept adult recess which proved to be one of the day’s highlights again!

And we finished the day reflecting on what we learned and how we learned.

Step 6 – Track the learning

Always, at the end of professional development, we collect feedback from our staff about what went well and what could be improved for next time. In addition to feedback, this time we wanted to collect some data about the learning that took place as well and specifically how it contributed to our School Improvement Plan and PYP Action Plan.

We collected data on what staff learned:

We collected data on how staff learned:

We collected data on how staff shared their learning with others:

We collected data on how staff’s learning contributed to our School Improvement Plan goals:

We collected data on how staff’s leaning contributed to our PYP Action Plan goals:

Once all the data was collected and organized, we made a display to ensure that our whole learning community could see the stats about our half day of personalized professional learning.

All in all, I think it was a success! It felt good to find the synergy between having all learners learning towards to a standard collection of goals, but allowing them to do it in a way that was relevant, significant, challenging and engaging for each them as individual learners. Again, we received an overwhelming positive response to our half day of PPL. When learners are thanking you for letting them learn and asking for more and longer opportunities to learn, hopefully that means we’re on the right track!

We still have lots of room to grow, so we would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on our model of Personalized Professional Learning! 

 

A Half Day of Personalized Professional Learning

Last week I shared our journey towards a half day of personalized professional learning for our Elementary staff. This week it happened… and it was AMAZING!

Here is how it went:

Sunday we sent out an email with some expectations and information for the upcoming half day of professional development learning. The information included a schedule, a reminder to bring a device and a copy of the “learning menu” for the day. We built the menu based on the input we collected the week before from their learning preferences forms.

We also attached brief descriptions for each of the options in the learning and action blocks, as well as options for sharing throughout the day. This gave everyone a few days to think about how they wanted to spend their afternoon of learning.

Tuesday students were dismissed at 11:00 and we were gathered in our multipurpose room ready to go at 11:45.

Connections

We intentionally seated our very large staff in mixed groupings to help build our learning community and allow for some personal connections to be made before we jumped into the learning. We used the chocolate bar activity from this post, where everyone select a chocolate bar or piece of candy that they felt represents them and shared their reasoning with their colleagues at the table. This was a great ice breaker as the room immediately erupted into chatter and laughter!

Today at a glance

Then we took some time to go over the schedule and format of the half day to ensure that we were all on the same page. We also took this time to ensure that everyone’s learning focus for the afternoon was tied together with the common thread of improving student learning.

Options for sharing

Our leadership team felt very strongly that we could trust our staff as professional to drive their own learning and there was no need for an external measure of accountability. We also felt that the true accountability was to one another and the learning community in general, so we wanted to build a variety of ways to allow and encourage everyone to share their learning with each other throughout the day. So we introduced three options for sharing; our shared blog, a back channel using Today’sMeet or through Twitter using our hashtag for the day #AISQ8PPL .

Essential Agreements

We wanted to ensure that all 125 Elementary staff members had a shared understanding of what was needed in order to make this day a truly successful day of learning. We wanted everyone’s voice in this process, so we used a modified ‘growing definition’ structure to help us build our essential agreements. First we had each group of 8 come up with their list of agreements, then we had each group add the one they felt most strongly about to this google doc, which we projected for all to see. After that, we gave an opportunity for the whole staff to review the essential agreements and offer any suggestions or changes they felt were needed. Once all 125 of us were in agreement, we each signed our names.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning Block 1 & 2

Each staff member self-selected what they wanted to learn about and how they wanted to learn.

We had staff choose personal inquiry…

 

Collaborative inquiry…

 

Guided inquiry…

EdCamp…

School Walkabout…

 

Workshops…

 

Sharing throughout the day

It was great to see so many staff members sharing their learning journey throughout the day. We had 3 new posts on our blog, 126 entries on the back channel and 130 tweets on #AISQ8PPL. People were excitedly sharing discoveries, resources, a-ha moments and more!

Adult recess

Then came time for adult recess – which was awesome! All 125 of us headed outside into the fresh air and sunshine to take a little body break and re-charge our minds. We had skipping, colouring, frisbee, soccer, basketball, music, Western dancing, Arab dancing and a lot of laughter.

Action Block

If I’m being totally honest… our action block was much shorter than expected… because we extended adult recess by 10 minutes. (Totally worth it!) But after we managed to pry ourselves away from the fun and the sun, it was awesome to see groups of staff members sitting together sharing their learning, discussing their discoveries and helping one another log on to Twitter. We had 20 new people sign-up for Twitter throughout the course of the day! Talk about learner-initiated action!

Content Reflection

Now it was time to reflect. First, we used the Visible Thinking Routine “I used to think… Now I think” to encourage everyone to reflect on what they had learned and how their understanding of teaching and learning had changed. Staff was invited to either Tweet, back channel or write down their reflection.

  

Process Reflection

We also  wanted everyone to think about how they learned, so we invited everyone to write, back channel or Tweet about how and when they modelled the traits of the IB Learner Profile.

 

Application Reflection 

We also asked everyone to think about their experience as a learner today and how that might impact the work they do with their learners.

 

Feedback 

Finally we asked for some feedback about the afternoon. We set up a google form with two boxes – one for stars and one for wishes. We wanted an honest assessment of how the day went, what worked, what didn’t and suggestions for next time. The responses were overwhelmingly positive! Here is a small representative sample of the 10 pages of feedback we received.

Stars:

• loved the different options for learning
• great to have time to put our learning into action
• nice to have personal choice and freedom
• loved being in charge of my own learning
• adult recess was awesome!!!
• interesting to see what other people were learning
• nice to be trusted to be responsible for my own learning
• differentiated with lots of choice and options
• interacting with people I don’t usually interact with
• range of choices for different learning preferences
• I enjoyed having learning tailored to my needs and interests
• allowed me to reflect on my practice
• relaxed and teacher-centered
• I learned so much!
• the time flew by
• staff were treated as professionals
• great team building and time for collaboration
• appreciated being able to learn at my own pace
• learning options were various and rich
• not having to listen to anyone talk at me
• taking ownership over my learning
• time for exploration, inquiry and reflection

We also received some great constructive feedback that we will use to improve our structure for next time!

Wishes:

• more opportunity for this structure of professional learning
• more time to think about and complete the reflections
• longer sessions to dive deeper into the inquiries
• set up Twitter and social media before the day so we are ready to go
• longer adult recess
• more time to collaborate and share our learning
• a full day instead of only half
• longer time to eat lunch before we start
• bigger variety workshops to choose from, led by teachers
• track the data of what and how everyone is learning
• longer learning blocks
• longer action blocks

How awesome is it that our biggest suggestion from our staff is MORE time for professional learning!?

Thinking back on the day, I have a few of my own personal reflections:

• It was great to develop a structure that allowed for every member of our staff to be a learner and spend time learning things relevant to their position within the school- especially the people who are usually delivering PD on these types of days (admin, coaches, coordinators, etc.)
• It was amazing to see the learner-led action that resulted from this day. Staff members joined Twitter, started blogs, made changes to their teaching practice, signed up for workshops and more
• If you trust your staff and develop the structures to help them to take ownership for their own learning, they will not disappoint. Our staff not only met our expectations, but went above and beyond our hopes and dreams for the day!
• This structure of professional learning did wonders for our sense of community and staff morale
• Sometimes the best way to help someone learn about inquiry, differentiation, learner choice and voice, social media and technology integration is not to have that be the content of learning, but instead the conduit for learning
• Adult recess if life changing

We started on this journey by being very vulnerable and transparent with our staff saying “If you hate PD, that’s a clue to our leadership team that we are doing something wrong.” If that’s true, then hopefully these Tweets and post-its are clues that we’re doing something right…

Since this is the first time we’ve tried something like this, we would love to hear your feedback and suggestions to continue to help us grow and extend our model of personalized, professional learning for all! 

 

A journey towards a half day of personalized professional learning (Part 1)

It all started when myself and the Globally Minded Counsellor sat down and decided we needed to shake up the model of professional development happening at our school. The current model was not bad by any means – we used lots of visible thinking routines, always asked staff for feedback about how we could improve and provided choice as often as possible…

But when we asked ourself the question “Who owns their learning?” we both knew the answer was “We do.” And that’s what we wanted to change. We wanted to let go of our control, so that our staff was able to take ownership for their own learning and we thought our upcoming half day presented the perfect opportunity!

Here’s how it went…

Step one – getting the leadership team on board

We organized an inquiry into professional development and invited the whole leadership team. We started with a provocation. We projected a couple of Profressional Development memes and reflected upon our reactions, thoughts, connections, hopes and fears. Then we shared what we thought with one another.

Next, we each completed an inquiry self-assessment, where all of the words students had been replaced with teachers and all the words teacher had been replaced with leadership.  We each reflected on how inquiry-based our professional development had been so far this year and then we shared our thoughts with one another.

Then, we inquired into what other schools around the world were doing and saying about professional development. We used this collection of resources and the Visible Thinking Routine Connect-Extend-Challenge to organize our thinking.

After that, we completed a Back to the Future Protocol to help us create a shared vision of where we want to be by the end of the year and how we are going to get there.

  

Finally, to ensure there was no secret teacher leadership business, we posted all of our thinking on the bulletin board in our multipurpose room for the whole staff to see.

Step two – getting staff buy in 

Now it was time to start disrupting our staff’s thinking about professional development. So we used a divisional staff meeting – where all 125 staff were present – to inquire into 21st Century professional learning.

We started by projecting the same memes to provoke thinking and reactions about PD. We built in time for everyone to discuss their connections, reactions and thoughts with one another.

Then, we were vulnerable and transparent with the staff. We said, “If any of you feel this way about our professional development, that is a clue for us – as a leadership team – that we are doing something wrong. Our goal is to work together as a staff to make sure none of us feel this way about our upcoming half day on February 2nd. In order to accomplish this we need to start by placing the ownership for your own learning back in your hands.”

As a first step down that path, we wanted to tune into what our staff already knew about 21st C professional learning. So we asked these three questions:

What are 21st C educators learning about?

How are 21st C educators learning?

What ways are 21st C educators sharing their learning with others?

We invited everyone to either post their thinking on to this online anchor chart or the paper anchor charts posted around the room.

Then, to challenge our thinking and broaden our perspective, we all explored this collection of resources to see what other schools are doing. We then added our discoveries to the same anchor charts.

Finally, we had everyone create a learning wish list of things they would want to learn about if they had the time.

Step 3 – Planning in response to learning 

Now it was time to start putting together  a structure for our upcoming half day that would support personalized, professional learning for all of our staff. But we wanted to ensure that the structure would represent everyone’s learning interests and preferences. So instead of trying to anticipate what kind of learning the staff wanted… we simply asked them.

Each and every person on our staff completed a learning preferences form – principals, teachers, TAs, counsellors, coordinators, and coaches alike.

Then came the fun part! Our leadership team took all 125 learning preference forms and started looking for trends to help us build a half day structure that would support everyone’s personalized professional learning.

Now we’re at the stage of finalizing the structure for the half day. We plan to share that with staff on Sunday to allow everyone to have a few days to think about how they want to spend their half day of personalized professional learning on Tuesday, February 2nd.

Then we jump in with both feet!

Wish us luck. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

 

My Personal Learning Book… making sure I’m never too busy to improve

Last week, I asked the question are YOU too busy to improve?

This week I reflect on the question am I too busy to improve?

Last week I claimed that:

The very practices that clutter our time as teachers – finding worksheets, photocopying, “marking”, planning “activities”, finding resources for students, coming up with summative tasks, writing rubrics, mapping out 6 weeks of a unit – are the very practices we would start to let go of and approach differently if we had a deeper understanding of inquiry-based teaching and learning.

Which got me thinking… what are the practice that clutter my day as PYP Coordinator that I might start to let go of or approach differently if I had a deeper understanding of leading through inquiry-based teaching and learning. Furthermore, if I expect teachers to be model inquirers to inspire their students, shouldn’t I then strive be a model-inquirer for the teachers? I think so.

So I’ve decided to put my money where my mouth is and invest the time to further my own professional learning.

Here is an account of how I went about doing it:

First, I invested a few hours scrolling through the following blogs:

What Ed Said

Inquire Within

Just Wondering

Sharing the PYP

and printing off any and every post that related to something I was interested in learning about.

Next, I sorted all the blog posts into piles based on categories (PD, planning meetings, inquiry, leadership, teacher coaching, learning spaces etc)

Then, I organized all the blog posts into sections of a binder to create my very own personalized learning book.

 

Now anytime I have 5-10 free minutes I can pull out my binder and go through pre-screened learning materials that are directly related to areas of my own personal growth and interest.

Sure, it was a lot of initial time up-front going through the blogs and printing out the posts of interests. But now that that job is done, I have a huge collection of hand-picked resources tailored to my own professional areas of growth. As I reflect, I realized I could have probably saved a lot of trees if I had tried to make an e-version of this learning book, but I have to admit that I love having the paper copies that I can hold and hilight! Maybe next time I will push myself to figure out how to create a digital version.

Already, I have found that having this personalized learning book has been a great way ensure that I’m never too busy to improve. And I am starting to see my investment of time pay off!

I used to spend hours each week anticipating what teams should be talking about in their collaborative planning meetings and creating agendas for them.

Now I build in time at the end of each meeting to allow the teachers to build their own agenda for their next collaborative planning meeting based on what they want and need to discuss.

I used to spend hours organizing the logistics of peer observations for our 125 PYP staff members.

Now I let the teachers choose what they want to learn about, who they want to learn from, when they are going to complete their visit and how best they will record their learning.

We (myself and the leadership team) used to spend hours each week planning “activities” for Tuesday night staff meetings and half day PD sessions.

Now we (myself and h_sopierce) have begun to work on a plan to allow teachers to own their own learning through a structure of personalized inquiry time.

These 3 changes came from shifts in my own thinking, inspired by what I read in my personalized learning book and demonstrate that beautiful balance of more meaningful, enjoyable learning for the students teachers and less busyness and needless prep for the teacher PYP Coordinator.

How do you make sure that you’re never too busy to improve?

Are you too busy to improve?

I recently came across this image…

I came across it when reading 10 Tips to Become a 21st Century Teacher and haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since! To me, it perfectly sums up the paradox experienced by new-to-PYP teachers. At my school most of our teachers have taught in the PYP for less than 5 years (myself included) which means we all have a lot to learn about inquiry-based, concept-driven, student-led, internationally minded teaching and learning.

However, much too often these are the comments I hear:

“I just don’t have time to go on blogs.”

“When in my day am I supposed to find time for my own learning?”

“I am too busy with my teaching responsibilities to have time to go on Twitter.”

“When are we ever supposed to have a free moment to go on OCC or read IB documents?”

I always find this way of thinking so ironic. The very practices that clutter our time as teachers – finding worksheets, photocopying, “marking”, planning “activities”, finding resources for students, coming up with summative tasks, writing rubrics, mapping out 6 weeks of a unit – are the very practices we would start to let go of and approach differently if we had a deeper understanding of inquiry-based teaching and learning.

My advice? Make the time to learn about the round wheels. You will thank yourself later. Go on blogs, join Twitter, read the IB documents. Once you understand how the round wheels work and how to use them, I promise you will find that beautiful balance in inquiry-based teaching and learning where the students’ learning and engagement goes up and your “prep” and “busyness” goes down. It is a wonderful symbiotic relationship and when you experience it, you will know it. It’s enjoyable for the students and equally enjoyable for the teachers!

But in order to get there – and find that enjoyable, smooth ride that is made possible by the round wheels – you have invest the time to learn, let go of old practices and be willing to try doing things a new way.

Are you too busy to improve?

If so, be prepared to keep being exhausted as you pull your cart along with square wheels. 

Connecting with Students

At the beginning of the year, I chose the word connect to guide my intentions, goals and actions for the year. I wanted to connect more with students, teachers, parents and the on-line PYP community. Three months in, as I reflect on my growth so far, I can see that I have made the most progress connecting with students. As I try to unpack “why is it like that?” (causation) I can identify a few  factors that have helped me.

Here are the 10 things I’ve tried that I think have helped me connect more with students:

1. Smile at them – a simple act that makes a big difference. I notice that when I smile at a student, their usual first reaction is shock and surprise, always followed by a smile back. I often wonder why students are so shocked to have a teacher or adult smile at them? Is it that rare? I truly hope not.
2. Say hello and goodbye – As often as possible, I try to position myself in a place that allows me to greet students in the morning and send them off at then end of the day.
3. Learn names. Use names. Pronounce them properly – Recently I read a quote that said some students can go a full day at school without ever hearing a teacher/adult say their name. How heartbreaking! This year, I have intentionally tried to learn as many names as possible and use them in my interactions and conversations with students. Whether its a greeting, a question, a compliment, I find using their name adds a nice personal touch. I’ve also tried my best to pronounce each name properly. This often requires lots of practice and seeking out feedback from students. But the students are always so appreciative of the effort. It has taken me three years to master “Ahmed”! My next challenge is “Khaled”.
4. Ask questions and care about the answer – Edna Sackson advises us to go beyond learning students’ names and start learning their stories. How can we do this without asking questions? How was your weekend? How is your family? How was your day? This year I have tried to ask questions, not just to ask, but to really listen and care about the answer. It has been amazing to learn about students’ lives outside of school.
5. Inquire into their interests – 90% of my conversation with the Grade 5 boys at my school are about WWE. I have absolutely no interest in WWE myself, but I love hearing their passion and excitement when they talk about their favourite wrestlers, favourite matches and favourite moves. Whether it is WWE, Trash Packs, Bey Blades, Geronimo Stilton, Premiere League or Frozen, there is such power in learning about the interests of each student. You don’t need to care about the same thing, but you can still acknowledge their interest and ask them questions about it to show you are interested in them.
6. Care for them – The Relevant Educator has a great post explaining the difference between caring about students and caring for students. This has been my inspiration for actively seeking opportunities to care for students. Whether that means picking up something they dropped, holding a door open for them, helping them carry a heavy backpack or teaching them how to to tie their shoe. Small, simple acts of kindness can go a long way to show you care.
7. Take interest in their language, culture and religion – As an international teacher, most of the students at my school are from a different culture, speak a different language and practice a different religion than me. I find the more I ask, listen and learn about their language, culture and religion the better I understand them as people and our relationship becomes stronger. I enjoy being able to use simple phrases or hand gestures that students understand. It is great to be able to acknowledge and wish them well for an upcoming holiday. It is clear that they appreciate the interest and the effort.
8. Take their problems seriously – Sometimes I find we minimize students’ problems. I think it would be helpful to reflect on how we would feel experiencing those same problems as adults. How upset would you be if your money was stolen out of your purse? Could you focus on your job if you and your best friend were in a fight? This year I have tried to empathize more with students when they are looking for help solving their problems – both big and small. I have tried to put myself in their shoes and consider how I would be feeling if I were them, and it has helped me invest more time in listening to their problems and supporting them through solving those problems.
9. Have a sense of humor – I love having jokes with students. One student calls me Cruela Daville, one student gives me points when she sees me drinking water and takes points away when she sees me drinking coffee, one student thanks me for the Starbucks I left on his desk (which I never do) and I love it. I love joking around with students. I love laughing with students. I love being invited to see that side of their personality.
10. Play with them – This is the jackpot. Whether it is playing tic-tac-toe, who can reach my hand when I wear high heels, stella-ella-ola, solve the riddle, a moon walking contest or the latest version of rock-paper-scissors (which requires going into the splits!)  I find that playing with students is the best way that I can build genuine relationships with them. I try to force myself to go out for recesses that I am not on duty, specifically to play with the students. (Not to mention it provides fresh air, exercise and stress relief for me!) 

It’s interesting that sometimes you hear teacher’s say “I don’t have enough time to build relationships with students”. As PYP coordinator, none of my direct responsibilities involve students, but I actively seek out opportunities to purposefully connect with students. For me, building relationships with students is intentional… and essential… and the best part of working in the field of education! I often ask myself, Who have I not connected with yet? What can I do to form a bond with this student? and I purposefully invest the time and effort to build that bond. And the investment is so worth it. I am proud to say I have numerous authentic, meaningful relationships with many of the students at my school. I love when they run to my office to share their learning with me. I am honoured that they trust me with their problems. I enjoy the inside jokes we share. I appreciate that they listen to me when I have a reminder or redirection about their safety or behavior. I like being invited to take the Bean Boozled challenge! (If you don’t know what this is, consider yourself lucky!) 

I can also acknowledge that connecting with students is not accidental. It’s  a causal relationship. I invest in the relationship in purposeful ways and I reap the benefits daily.

Which of these do you already do?

Which of these might you want to start doing?

What else do you do to intentionally connect with the students?