Month: October 2013

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Flipping PD with Google Docs

on October 20, 2013

IScreen Shot 2013-10-20 at 1.12.18 PM‘ve been impressed by the Flipped Learning Concept from the moment I saw my first Khan Academy video. My son, who has a gift for mathematics, was in the fifth grade at the time and we had several years of well intentioned mathematics instruction behind us. We knew we were coming to a particularly crucial point in his education as he got ready for his middle school years. During his 6th grade year, he sat in a classroom with a pre-algebra book, largely teaching himself, while the teacher conducted the regular 5th grade math lesson for the rest of the class. Thank you Samuel Khan for coming to the rescue. We spent evenings watching instructional videos and his class time was spent working on math problems with little interruption to the teacher for clarification.

Fast forward a few years and I’m impressed by my teacher colleagues who have adopted this approach to teaching by personalizing their own flipped instruction using resources such as Google Docs, Show Me, YouTube, Screencast-o-Matic and SnagIt. As a principal and instructional leader who appreciates how valuable my staff’s time is, I have decided to embrace the concept of Flipping Professional Development. Rather than using our staff meetings for presentations, resources on information on the professional development topic will be shared with staff prior to the meeting and the time will be used for staff to collaborate on improving their professional practice.
The next staff meeting/professional development session will focus on collecting baseline data and writing baseline statements for IEPs. Information and resources will be shared via a Google Presentation prior to the meeting with the expectation that staff will review the materials prior to the professional development session and with the hope that they find the material relevant and worth their time.
With a nod to walking the walk when it comes to baseline data, a Google Form will be sent to staff prior to the session to collect data on their opinions to participating in a Flipped PD model. The data will be presented at the beginning of the staff meeting. The meeting will end with a post session survey collecting data on staff’s opinion regarding their participation in the Flipped Model Session. With gratefulness to those who have gone before me and shared examples of what has gone well as well as what didn’t work, I have prepared our first Flipped PD session.
For those of you reading this blog who are already flipping instruction and PD sessions, I invite you to leave comments about your successes as well as what you’ve learned from when it didn’t go as expected. I believe the most valuable part of this post could end up being found in the comments section as we share our experiences.
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Investing in Motivated Lead Learners

on October 12, 2013

Screen Shot 2013-10-12 at 2.44.34 PMInvesting in teachers, support staff and their professional development is one of the most important responsibilities of the educational leader. I have been blessed to work in an organization that believes in people in the number one resource for student success and when hiring uses the motto, “Hire for character, teach for skill.” This philosophy has created a culture of motivated adult learners who continually seek to improve their professional practice and knowledge base.

Four  years ago, under the vision of a gifted program specialist and assistant superintendent who believed in investing in employees as professionals, what is now referred to as the Core 7 Professional Development Model began. The goal was to develop teacher expertise in evidence-based practices for students on the autism spectrum. (See the National Professional Development’s Center AIM Resources – http://www.autisminternetmodules.org/user_mod.php). Since the onset of this vision, the program has grown to include one full release day per month for morning teacher collaboration directed by the teachers themselves. This is followed by an afternoon of group training which includes the expectation that management staff participate in the learning of the practice being focused on for the month. In addition, monthly staff meeting time has become a focused professional development session on the topic of the month. Parents, community members and educators from other districts are invited to attend as well as classified staff who are paid for their time.

One of the greatest discoveries of diving into these practices was finding out that these effective strategies are not limited to success with students on the spectrum. Rather, these practices are a foundation for good teaching in general. For example, looking at classroom structure as an antecedent based intervention to support positive student behaviors is effective in all educational environments. We see evidence of video-modeling across skill and subject matters as the Flipped Classroom grows in popularity, not to mention how often youtube videos are used on a daily basis by the average learner to support picking up skills such as learning how to tie a tie.

It is now the fourth year of implementation of the Core 7 Model. The results are a certificated and classified staff of motivated adult learners, as well as the ability to attract highly motivated applicants for open positions. During the interview process, when we begin with the question, “Tell us about why you are interested in this position?” it is not uncommon to hear responses such, “I’ve heard that you in invest in the professional development of your people and they’re trained to be successful.” “I want to work with children and I heard you have good training that would be help me do a good job.” These results and responses serve as a powerful testimonial of the importance of investing in our educators as Lead Learners who are than able to collaborate, coach and train with each to become expert educators.