Outcome: Participants plan and implement effective professional development sessions based on the eMINTS Facilitation Model.
Portfolio Entry Narrative: As our district moves toward a 1:1 Chromebook initiative, it is my responsibility to train each of the teachers in my seven schools on how to use Google Drive in their classes. Up to this point, our teachers and students have been using MacBooks and most haven't delved into the the Google Drive world. I have developed four professional development sessions to introduce the teachers with which I work to several aspects of Google: Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, sharing, calendars, apps and extensions, and Google Classroom.
During the PD session, I discuss with the teachers that they should begin collaborating and networking with other professionals in their school, feeder pattern, and whichever PLN they choose. I guide them to my Pinterest board on Chromebooks and point out that many of the ideas I'm sharing with them have come from the articles I read on that social media site.
I then offer to help them design lessons through coaching. Suggestions are made that I could model a lesson using some aspect of Google Drive with their students. For example, I have taught all the third-grade students at one of my elementary schools and about half of the seventh-grade students at one of my middle schools how to use Google Docs. During this transition to Chromebooks, several teachers are piloting the devices in their rooms. For the first month of the pilot, I visited with one fifth-grade classroom weekly to teach different aspects of Drive. The class is using Docs as a daily journal to list the differences between the MacBooks and the Chromebooks.
Each PD session is very much technology hands-on. Not only do I show my participants how to create through modeling, I encourage them to create something relevant for their classroom as we work together. Teachers have created exit slips for their students through the use of Forms, classroom calendars that they then embed in their classroom LMS, and presentations for their students in Slides.
At the end of my professional development sessions, I have had several participants state that they enjoy coming to these sessions because I make them interesting, easy-to-follow, and they always learn something new, even if it's a topic they've been taught before.
Training teachers on using new programs/devices is one of my favorite parts of the job and I'm so glad that I have internalized the eMINTS Facilitation Model to help me through the process.
During the PD session, I discuss with the teachers that they should begin collaborating and networking with other professionals in their school, feeder pattern, and whichever PLN they choose. I guide them to my Pinterest board on Chromebooks and point out that many of the ideas I'm sharing with them have come from the articles I read on that social media site.
I then offer to help them design lessons through coaching. Suggestions are made that I could model a lesson using some aspect of Google Drive with their students. For example, I have taught all the third-grade students at one of my elementary schools and about half of the seventh-grade students at one of my middle schools how to use Google Docs. During this transition to Chromebooks, several teachers are piloting the devices in their rooms. For the first month of the pilot, I visited with one fifth-grade classroom weekly to teach different aspects of Drive. The class is using Docs as a daily journal to list the differences between the MacBooks and the Chromebooks.
Each PD session is very much technology hands-on. Not only do I show my participants how to create through modeling, I encourage them to create something relevant for their classroom as we work together. Teachers have created exit slips for their students through the use of Forms, classroom calendars that they then embed in their classroom LMS, and presentations for their students in Slides.
At the end of my professional development sessions, I have had several participants state that they enjoy coming to these sessions because I make them interesting, easy-to-follow, and they always learn something new, even if it's a topic they've been taught before.
Training teachers on using new programs/devices is one of my favorite parts of the job and I'm so glad that I have internalized the eMINTS Facilitation Model to help me through the process.