Flexible+Professional+Development+Plan

During my time as a teacher, and especially over the course of the last 18 months, I have realized that there are a couple of defects in the majority of professional development for educators. These defects are that the workshops often don’t result in immediately applicable resources or lessons for the classroom and a lack of consistent follow-up after the initial training.

I wanted a way that teachers could work on things they will actually use in their classes while acquiring technology skills, allow them to have individual or small group support, give them extended work time, reduce time out of the classroom, and repeated learning opportunities related to technology. This would begin as a voluntary program. I came up with the idea of teachers bringing materials that they intended to use with their students or areas that their students normally have difficulty with; then with the support of the Instructional Technologist they would convert the materials into a lesson incorporating interactive technology. Teachers would go to the computer lab with these materials at least once a semester during their off period. Teachers with conference periods next to each other will be partnered up in order to cover each others' classes so that their partner can have a two hour block of time to develop technological resources for their classroom. This gives teachers a significant amount of work time, while keeping them from missing a whole day of instruction for training. The teachers are gaining competency in the technology they will be using, while developing lessons that will be more engaging for students.

The Instructional Technologist took this idea, and others, to the Principal in a meeting about technology on the campus. The idea was modified to better fit the needs of the campus and include more online learning components. I think that for some campuses this would be an excellent way to make sure that teachers received follow up training and support in developing proficiency with technology.