Category Archives: Professional Development

Edcamp Philly: Intro to Passion Based Learning

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In Jen and Christy’s session on passion based learning, everyone could see the importance of helping students develop their passions and learn how to apply inquiry based learning to explore their own ideas. The session mostly focused on how to accomplish this goal while still covering the curriculum. Many ideas were shared so that teachers will be able to start a passion based project in their own classes.
First we learned about the projects that Jenn and Christy had going in their classes. They used various techniques to help students get started and formulate a question. They encouraged students to choose questions with no real endpoint. They give the students templates that help them narrow their questions. Christy shares examples of first grader questions and 10th grader questions with her students and tells them that their questions should be somewhere in between. Students track their goals and progress using a google form. The teachers also model the process for their students. The students are graded on the process rather than the final projects to emphasize that the process is even more important. They keep blogs which are graded so writing is a focus.
I would like to apply what I’ve learned to my science classes. Students can choose an area to study in physical science. I may have two different inquiry levels such as a curiosity level and an exploratory level. I can create a spreadsheet like the one Jen used to track student progress. Here is a template to track student goals. Jen has the students keep track of the conferences on a worksheet so that she can listen carefully and then they can reflect on what was said. It reduces her record keeping and increases the effectiveness of the conference.

 

Ordinary to You, Extraordinary to Someone Else

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Edcamp Philly Session Link

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hBuRgLqiup0L90LzlgxyYCnd7giIqP5foYYL8EOFLtw/edit

What would happen if students and teachers truly understood the importance of their ideas? Instead of wondering if their ideas were any good, classroom innovators would be sharing their experiences and learning from others. Teachers at EdCamp Philly were able to do just that on Saturday as they met to discuss what was working in their classrooms and find out what other educators were doing. In the session, Ordinary to You: Extraordinary to Someone Else, Brooke and Christy got us thinking with an inspiring video by Derek Sivers, click here for video. In it he points out the we are a “bad judge of our own creations” and so need to let others see what we are working on.

Teachers are sharing in many ways. Christy shared that she began tweeting out what her plans were for the week’s activities and was surprised when other teachers asked to join her group virtually. Teachers can print out their photo-stream and create a display such as the “180 days of Awesome” wall. At one school, the administrator did away with typical faculty meetings and instead the teachers stood in a circle and shared what was working in their classes. One teacher brings her entire class to join with another class in order to share a technology lesson with that teacher in a friendly, collaborative way. One group uses an Edmodo class to share the ways they were using technology in their classrooms. What seemed insignificant to those teachers was, in fact, inspiring to others who heard these ideas. Everyone agreed that there are certain obstacles to sharing such as a lack of time and confidence. After this session, however, we were all motivated to up our efforts and find ways to facilitate sharing at our schools.

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The Un-Service Day

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Many people have been attending a new type of conference lately called an “unconference.”  These conferences pool the ideas and expertise of the attendees to create sessions in which everyone is expected to share what they know.   Today my school district held an “Un-service Day” which was not the typical inservice that we are all used to!  District employees were asked to submit session ideas based on their own knowledge and skills.  A list went out to the faculty and staff and we all were able to choose the sessions we wanted to attend.  Session materials were posted on a wiki so that we could have access to all of the resources.  http://qcsdapril242012.wikispaces.com/  We also used a hashtag on twitter, #qcsd424, and we posted comments throughout the day.

My colleague, Laura, and I presented a session on using SMART boards and clickers to engage adolescent students.  We had a small group but I really enjoyed putting our ideas together.  We had fun creating the SMART lesson that we used for the session and the group of teachers that attended had a great conversation about what is needed to help children learn.

During the day I also got to attend a workshop on Google Docs, Blackboard, and SMART Notebook.  I have already begun implementing some of the things I learned in these sessions!  For example, I have created a self evaluation rubric using Google Forms so that the students can check and revise their work prior to turning in their assignment.  I posted the form on Edmodo and the students will be able to revise their rubric submission after they make revisions to their project.

One of the nicest things about the day was the positive atmosphere.  Everyone felt the benefit of contributing their ideas and gaining new information from their peers.  I would love to know if anyone else gets to do a similar type of professional development in their school districts.  What was the best PD that your district has offered?