Module 4 - Laura Funk

1.    What are your thoughts about effective professional development strategies? Describe a professional development opportunity that led to your adoption of new teaching or leadership practices.  

I think professional development is essential to a well-oiled team of teachers in a school.  Professional development opportunities engage teachers in brainstorming outside of the classroom environment where we can be “re-inspired, re-energized, and generally revved up!”  I have been to several professional development opportunities, all of which have been offered during the summer for some type of compensation.  Usually a stipend, which gives a bit of extra motivation for some to attend during our “off-season.”  Anyway, these professional developments have been offered as a one-shot workshop to introduce the information and services available for us (the teachers) to utilize.  I like the idea of one-shot workshops because then teachers have the knowledge to take from it and adapt and integrate it into our classrooms as we see fit.  I think this type of workshop does wonders to help teachers mix things up and add some flavor to their curriculum.  However, I do like the idea of having follow up workshops for teachers to collaborate and bring back their integration methods of the said material to share with others.  OR possibly have a public blog forum to post their reflections after some time has passed from the workshop.  I think this type of sharing and reflection is essential for us as teachers to glean from it what we find most valuable and teachable for our students and our subject.  An example of this is when I attended a “Physical Activity Training” in the spring.  I learned how to add physical activity and movement into my classroom to improve students’ health and to encourage them to pursue healthy lifestyles.  I took the key strategies I found the most beneficial, and have slowly integrated them into my weekly routine.  My goal is to include movement in my classes twice a week.  I can’t use all of the presented strategies, but I’ve adapted what will work for me and feel confident in my path of encouraging students to be healthy and physically active.  I am trying to spread the movement in my school, so have signed my school up for the 100 mile club movement challenge online.  Our goal is to get to 100 miles by walking or running that distance during the school year within the school day.  I have asked the physical education teachers to join me and will encourage the rest of the staff gradually throughout the year.  We will see if we make the challenge by June 1^st 2016! 

       

2.    What made this professional development opportunity effective from your perspective?

In reference to the Physical Activity Training, I feel the most effective part of this professional development was that any teacher, regardless of subject could walk away from the day with something to take back to their school and classroom.  The workshop itself had hands-on methods demonstrated throughout.  I obviously could not utilize every strategy presented because of my lack of space and equipment.  BUT – I also plan to move locations throughout the year and utilize the outdoors, the cafeteria, or the commons if needed.  One must change the environment to suit the specific need.  The classes were structured to be guidelines and give us general strategies to use among a variety of methods and settings.  I found it to be the most effective professional development I have ever attended.  PLUS (BONUS***), the head of the workshop continues to send us emails with links to push ideas further in our classrooms and to give us additional resources to check out on our own.   It is a simple thing to send an email, but it serves as a way of reminding us of our commitment to movement and re-energizes us with new things to try.  This is his way of following up with us and checking in – so helpful and encouraging!

3.    What is the PD strategy or strategies you plan to use in your Technology Integration Initiative? How will this strategy or strategies help you achieve the outcomes for your TI Initiative.

I think a workshop method is effective for a professional development.  It could be organized into various youtube video clips to get information across if I wanted to go digital instead of face-to-face interactions.  I do think if it were a workshop strategy I would need a follow-up forum where participants can get assistance and ask specific questions.  Ideally pairing participants off with mentors to assist smaller group concerns would be ideal.  I haven’t figured it out entirely yet, but I would like more than just a one-shot experience.  I want it to be a developing experience where the group learns from each other and grows as a collective.  I think any collaborative strategy is effective and as long as the participants’ feel confident and supportive the work will show that hard work and enthusiasm.

4.    What will you need to do to provide leadership to successful professional development (here you might think back on the results and your analysis of your Leadership Assessment and/or the resources/challenges present in the context for delivering professional development)?

To provide leadership to successful professional development one needs to be organized and have a well thought out plan of attack.  The professional development needs to address specific needs of the participants and have clear-cut developmental outcomes.  I scored high on self-confidence, positive attitude and outlook, providing a compelling vision for the future and emotional intelligence.  I think I could successfully deal with the issues needed in professional development administration.  The ever-present challenges would be addressing each specific need of the participants and gaining a large enough team to be able to knowledgably mentor the participants as they attempt to integrate the new knowledge and methods into their own classrooms.  This equals out to be a large amount of time invested for all involved, so the team would need to be proactive and have can-do attitudes throughout.

5.    Please also share any literature or resources you are using to refine your focus and develop your plan.

I am looking at Edutopia’s “Technology Integration” resources.  For example, “The LAUSD iPad Initiative: 5 Critical Technology Integration Lessons” (Linked below).

Ipad Initiative

Digital Leadership:  Changing Paradigms for Changing Times (Chapters 7-8)

Chapter 7  Branding

6.    What is "Brand-ed" School Leadership?  

To me, “Brand-ed” school leadership is collectively deciding what you want to represent your school?  Like our school has adopted a brand we call “Keys to Success.”  These “keys” we live and breathe are 3 components of our all-encompassing attitude.  We want to promote respect, responsibility, and volunteerism.  We as a group all try to demonstrate these 3 “keys” regularly.  We also give students actual key rewards at the end of each week.  Teachers write on a slip of paper the student’s name and what key they demonstrated and a small summary of what the student did to demonstrate that key.  It works well as a system of recognition because it is something that motivates, encourages and inspires others through proof of action and results that come from specific behaviors.  We branded our school with this key mentality and everyone establishes their behavioral structure around these main principles.  I think it works and has proven to be a positive re-structuring of our school brand in the last 2 years.  Branding happens in different ways, but for now this is my primary example of my understanding of the term. 

Chapter 8 Professional Growth and Development

7.    After reading Chapter 8, what experience do you have with PLN – Personal Learning Networks?  Do you think using PLN would be an option in your workplace setting to promote professional growth and development?

I don’t think my county has much personalized learning networks.  We do have our professional development site page where teachers can log on and sign up for available professional development opportunities, but that is it as far as I know.  Most of our networks are set up to get information out to the public. 

This class and our blog is a personal learning network of sorts.  I know it has been established for a grade, but we do build on each other and help expand our understanding of our readings and experiences. 

Personally, I am working on expanding my worldly experience through travel, so I have been working on a travel blog with my husband to share our experiences with certain cruise companies or travel excursions so that others may learn and structure their vacations based on what we have shared.  I also trained for the Morgantown half marathon (completed it last month) and am beginning training for a full marathon, which could also be an avenue subject where I share my training schedule, gear, tips, etc.  It is all still in its infancy stages though, but I am personally working on a learning network of some kind, just not one in a professional capacity at the moment.