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!!!

Read like a rebel

Last weekend at an IB conference in Singapore, I shared my personal journey from being a robot (a compliant student/teacher) to becoming a rebel (a thinker/questioner/challenger).

And a huge part of that journey for me was what I read. So often as educators we read amazing books… but they are usually books that help us do a better job within the system. Books about doing school well, or doing school better, or some even about doing school differently… but often just a little differently.

For me, the biggest shifts in thinking that I had came from books outside the system. From de-schoolers, un-schoolers, home-schoolers and even anti-schoolers. Books that made me critically look at the nature of the institution of school and begin to question some of the things we often assume to be “natural” or “essential” or “untouchable” elements of the education system.

So here are some of the things I read that helped poke and provoke my thinking about teaching, learning, schooling and the rights of the child:

It can be books…

Turning Points

How Children Learn

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Summerhill

Dumbing us Down

De-Schooling Society

It can be blogs:

Alfie Kohn blog

It can be Tweeters:

Bruce L Smith

It’s any reading material that gets you thinking, makes you question, gets you angry. The type of reading material that fires you up and gives you the confidence to look at school and say “that’s not okay”. The type of reading material that doesn’t shy away from challenging those “untouchable” elements of the school system.

The type of reading material that makes you feel unafraid to fail, be different or get in trouble.

What are your favourite “rebel reads” that I should add to the list?

Some thoughts on PD about agency

Recently I’ve been invited to visit a school in China to help poke and provoke their staff’s thinking about student agency. So being the keener that I am, I started putting together my workshop for them!

It was beautifully planned down the very last detail:

First I will provoke their thinking with a range of quotes, videos, and tweets. Then I will tune them into what they already know, or think they know about the concept of agency using a Frayer model and a Growing Definition. The I will get them to create their own questions using the Question Formulation Technique. Then I will give them a resource doc and have them inquire into the different resources and capture their thinking using a Connect-Extend-Challenge. Then I will get them to complete an agency self-reflection tool and put together a personalized action plan. Then to finish it off, I will have them complete a reflection activity called “I used to think… Now I think…”.

At first I was quite pleased with myself – inquiry-based, interactive, hands-on, lots of choice, full of Visible Thinking Routines and other best practices. Done and done!

But then I caught myself…

I couldn’t help but notice a pattern: “I will…, I will… I will… I will…” whether it was, “give them, get them to, or have them complete…” I was definitely the one engineering the learning.

So I began to wonder…

If the medium is the message, am I respecting and supporting their agency as learners?

Am I modelling for them what I’d hope to see them do in their classroom with their own learners?

Does the structure I have planned help them learn about agency, or through agency?

So I scrapped everything I had and went back to the drawing board, keeping those guiding questions in mind.

Now my plan looks totally different:

First, I will be transparent about the structure of the workshop. Explaining why the medium needs to be the message and what that has to do with my vision of them as capable, competent learners who know themselves and know what they need and how they learn best.

Next, they will construct their own personalized success criteria that shows what they hope to know, understand and/or be able to do by the end of our time together.

Then, I will present some systems and structures that provide a plethora of potential ways to learn about agency: a variety of optional sessions led by me, a structure for workshops any of them want to offer for each other, a resource Google document with many resources about agency that is editable so they can add new resources they find/create, an expert wall where teachers can sign up for aspects of agency they feel confident helping one another with, a conversation wall where they can add topics related to agency they want to discuss with one another, some possible time slots for one-on-one or small group conferences with me, opportunities to Skype with other educators experimenting with agency etc.

Next, I will provide them with blank schedules where they will fill in what they want to learn, how they plan to learn, where they will learn and with whom they will learn over the course of our two days together. Also blocking out potential breaks and time for lunch as they see fit.

Also, we will discuss planning for documentation. We will discuss all the different ways to document learning – Evernote, Google doc, Google slides, Twitter, notebook, bubble catcher, personal blog etc. – and then they will choose how best to capture and record their own learning.

Then the majority of our time together will be them learning – hopefully, with some conducting personal inquiries, others learning collaboratively, some choosing to attend my sessions, others attending peer-led sessions, lots of conversation – one-on-one, small group, and large group – with me and with each other. Not to mention taking breaks, eating, drinking, time for play and fun.

Towards the end, they will self-assess using their personalized success criteria to evaluate their own learning and ascertain their next steps in their learning journey towards understanding and implementing agentic models of learning.

Finally, to wrap up our time together we will collectively brainstorm why we reflect, how we can reflect and what specifically we can reflect about. My hope is that this generates a menu of “how” options ranging from conversation, to painting, to vlogging, to writing, to sketchnoting and “what” options ranging from what they learned about, to how they learned, to how they felt about their learning. Then they will reflect in a way that is most comfortable and purposeful for them as learners.

Obviously I won’t know how it goes until it actually happens… but I can say that I feel much more comfortable (and less hypocritical) with my second plan, compared to my first.

I know there are many of us in the education community charged with supporting teachers to learn about agency and shift their practice towards a more agentic model of learning. I think if we want to do so successfully then we need to be very purposeful in crafting professional learning experiences where the medium is the message – where teachers experience agency as learners, in order to be able to then go back into the classroom and respect and support their students’ agency as learners.

What are your approaches to helping teachers understand and implement more agentic models of learning?

*I’m also very open to feedback and suggestions about how I can make my plan even more agentic for the teachers I will be working with, so please feel free to leave constructive comments below!*

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?

Working with adults will make me more patient with children

As PYP Coordinator, I have worked with adult learners for two years and I have loved every minute of it. The amazing conversations we’ve had about teaching and learning have blown my educational-mind and have played a huge part in my decision to go back into the classroom.

I have to admit though, when I took the job as PYP Coordinator I had no idea what to expect! (To be honest I was a little intimidated to work with adults!) Now, after two years of working with adults I look back and value the strong relationships I’ve built and the great learning experience I have had!

However, there were some things that surprised me about adult learners – the very same things that used to frustrate me as a classroom teacher. I have started to wonder if  these similarities might have more to do with being a human, than being a child.

So here is my list of 10 things that I’ve noticed we do as adult-learners that will hopefully make me more patient when working with child-learners:

1. We talk while someone is talking – I can’t recall one staff meeting or professional development session where side conversations weren’t going on while someone else was speaking.
2. We forget to clean up after ourselves – After most 45-minute collaboration sessions or 3-hour unit planning sessions I find myself throwing out wrappers, left over food, empty water bottles, used tissues – not to mention putting communal pencils back in their cups and clearing away scrap papers.
3. We opt to not participate – A few months ago we did a “Sentence, Phrase, Word” Visible Thinking Routine to help our staff unpack the IB’s expectations for Three-Way Conferences. We made a chart paper for each grade and subject team where each staff member could place their post-its with their sentence, phrase and word. It was interesting that many of posters had significantly fewer sentences, phrases and words than members of their team who were present.
4. We forget to bring things – Sometimes a request is made to bring something specific to a staff meeting or collaborative planning session, for example a device, a PYP binder, day plans etc.. And sometimes people have shown up without them.
5. We need more time – Many times tasks are planned to take one hour… one session… one afternoon to complete, but often certain teams and individuals need more time.
6. We take a long time to wrap up a conversation – With our large staff of 125 adult-learners we raise our hand to re-collect everyone’s attention after a group discussion. Most times this takes at least 2 minutes of holding up my hand. It makes me think of all the times as a classroom teacher I counted down from 5 (from 5!) and expected my students to have wrapped up their conversation and re-focused their attention!
7. We take a long time to transition – We try to have a lot of movement in our professional development sessions, where staff move from place to place and activity to activity. Even if the transition is something small like go post your post-it on the chart, we are often looking at transitions of 5 minutes plus and lots of invitations (and reminders) to head back to our seats.
8. We don’t follow instructions – At the beginning of the year we did a Chalk Talk as a staff where we explained that during a Chalk Talk you communicate with others through your marker, not by using your voice… we lasted 45 seconds without talking to each other.
9. We get “off task” – I’m not sure there has been one grade or subject collaborative planning session when teams are working on their PYP planners, where random tangents of conversations have not erupted – …. travel stories, new restaurant discoveries, tales of weird childhood injuries etc.
10. We choose to work with our friends – As much as possible we try to mix and mingle our very large staff in a variety of ways – instructions to sit with people you don’t know, turn and share with someone who is not on your team, name cards on tables – and yet somehow, the majority of the time,  friends end up sitting with and working with friends.

I’m not saying as adult learners we are bad or misbehaving. Quite the opposite! I’m saying that if  we as grown-up, responsible, mature, professionals do all of these things… how can we possibly get upset at children for doing them? As I head back into the classroom next year, I hope that when I am faced with children who take a long time to wrap up their conversation, forget to bring their device, talk while someone is talking or don’t follow instructions that I treat them with the same level of patience, respect and dignity that I would treat a group of adults in that same situation.

Ask yourself…

Have you ever whispered to a friend during a staff meeting?

Have you ever left behind a pencil, water bottle, coffee mug?

Have you ever showed up to PD without a device or writing utensil?

Have you ever had a quick conversation with a friend on the way back to your seat?

Have you ever sat beside or worked with one of your friends?

I know I have…

Assessment – Caught between two worlds

I have been an educator for 8 years and throughout those years I have learned (and tried) to be more discerning and to question educational practices. My goal – common to many 21st C educators – is to move away from “doing school” and more towards facilitating true learning.

I started my career in the Ontario system of education which provided me with a great foundation. Then I became an IB educator which really pushed and challenged my thinking about teaching and learning. The more my understanding grew and changed, the more I realized that although some of the practices I picked up as a teacher in Ontario could be transposed into my new practice as a PYP teacher, other practices no longer seemed to fit.

And then there are the practices that I’m still not sure about. Sometimes I feel caught between both worlds and have trouble figuring out which “best practices” from non-IB systems support true learning and which merely help students get better at “doing school”.

Many of these conundrums for me center around assessment specifically….

Namely success criteria, exemplars and bump it up walls. 

When I started my teaching career in Ontario I used all three of these things. They helped my students “do well” on summatives. They increased “achievement” in my class. They provided students with a clear pathway to “success” on the rubric. But now I question – were they really helping my students learn? Or were they merely helping my students get better at “doing school”?

I’m not sure, but before I move back into the classroom I sure would like to figure it out!

Should these practices be packed in our “international educator suitcases” when we leave home to be brought with us and transposed into our PYP practice?

 Do these practices truly support learning, or do they just help students “do school” really, really well? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts… 

Taryn’s Taxonomy of Professional Learning Resources

As PYP Coordinator, my job is not only to support my colleagues as teachers, but also as learners. When I meet with them to talk about their professional learning I usually ask the same three questions:

1. What have you been learning about lately?
2. How have  you been learning about it?
3. What do you plan to learn about next?

When I’m having these conversations, it’s often responses to the second question that stick with me and get me thinking about different types of resources, how they support different purposes and where they fit along the journey of a life long teacher-learner.

Based on my own reflections and perspectives, I created Taryn’s Taxonomy of Professional Learning Resources to illustrate my beliefs about the many different sources teachers use for their professional learning.

Teachers Pay Teachers – I can understand why teachers use TPT. I pass no judgement on teachers who uses TPT. However I don’t like TPT for a variety of reasons, many of which are shared by fellow educators Matt Gomez and Chelsea Bashore. For these reasons, I believe that TPT is on the lower end of the taxonomy of professional learning resources. I think TPT provides teachers with things teachers can use right away in their classroom, but like Edna Sackson says, “effective professional learning is not about things you can try tomorrow, but rather big ideas that shift your understanding of teaching and learning”. I’ve yet to see TPT as source of big ideas that shift teachers’ thinking and until it does, it will remain on the bottom of my taxonomy.

Pinterest – I’ve shared my opinions about Pinterest before. So have other educators. I think similar to Teachers Pay Teaches, time spent on Pinterest is most often focused on the “what” of teaching, not necessarily the “how” or “why”. Focusing on the “what” keeps us in the cycle of doing school and prevents us from moving closer towards real learning. Many teacher-friends have been telling me that Pinterest has gotten better lately – for this reason I have placed it above TPT- but I still have my reservations. Until the comments shift from “I saw something on Pinterest I am going to try” to “I learned something on Pinterest that blew my mind and totally challenged my thinking about _____”  it will remain on the lower end of my taxonomy.

Blogs – Blogs. Now we’re getting somewhere! True, some blogs can still be stuck in the “what”, but good blogs start to move into the “hows” and “whys” of teaching and learning. Blogs allow teachers to share their practice, thoughts, questions and reflections. This reflective, narrative quality  is what opens up the conversation to allow for the exploration of how to turn theory into practice and why something is worth knowing or doing in the first place. Really excellent blogs even go so far as to critically look at teaching and learning, ask provocative questions and challenge your thinking about why we do what we do – and why we need to do it better! However, something to be cautious of, is the fact that anyone can blog, which means much of what is written is coming from one person’s experience and perspective (like this post for example!) so you have to be discerning and critical as a blog consumer.

Twitter – Twitter is in a very similar category to blogs for a few reasons. First of all, on Twitter you can find “whats”, “hows” and “whys”.  However, the benefit of Twitter is that you are exposed to a wide range of everything all at once so you can easily skip past the “whats” in search of the “hows” and the “whys”. Also – similar to blogs – you also have to be a critical consumer when reading people’s perspectives and opinions about teaching and learning. Yet, even though Twitter is a forum where personal perspectives are shared, research is also discussed and cited quite regularly. Edna Sackson advocates for professional learning that challenges our thinking by providing us with tensions to work through and big ideas to connect. In my opinion, Twitter as a resource successfully accomplishes that very goal!

Research – Education research… the highest level on the taxonomy… the apex of the pyramid… and sadly, the most seldom used source of teachers’ professional learning (present company included!).  Sources like ERIC, ASCD and Google Scholar provide access to thousands of journal articles that provide strategies for teaching and learning that are supported by data. Education research can provide answers to our questions about the “what”, “how” and “why” in research-based ways. It’s not one educator’s opinion about what they think is effective in the classroom, it’s what has been shown to be effective through rigorous research design, large amounts of data collection and sophisticated analysis and interpretation.  The question is, if all of this amazing, data-supported education research is available… why aren’t more of us using it in our professional learning?

Peers – I have placed peers as a resource for professional learning all the way up the pyramid. This is because I believe peers can be an amazing source of professional learning – depending on what is being shared. Peers can be an avenue for sharing everything from a “what” found on TPT all the way up to research-supported “hows” or “whys”.

When I think back on my own journey as a learner, I can see how I have moved up the taxonomy over the years- starting from focusing on the “what” and year by year getting closer to focusing on the “why”. I was never much a TPT user, but I was definitely a Pinterest addict and spent my early years in education looking for things I could use in my classroom. Last year I got into blogs to support my inquiries that were more focused on learning about how teachers made inquiry-based, concept-driven education a reality for their students. This year I am all about Twitter. I love scrolling through and having my own beliefs about teaching and learning challenged and learning about new ideas and initiatives that help me move away from “doing school” and closer to being able to facilitate true learning. I can clearly see where I need to head next…. in to the scary land of education research. That will be my focus for next year.

When thinking about this taxonomy and my role as PYP Coordinator, I am beginning to think that my job is not only to support teachers’ learning… but also to support teachers as learners by helping them move up the pyramid to use sources in their professional learning that are grounded in research and focus on big conceptual shifts in thinking.

Where are you on the taxonomy?

What are your perspectives on the different sources of professional learning?

What sources of professional learning am I missing? Where would you place them?

How do you help your colleagues move up the pyramid?

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!