Digital Journal #4
Professional Development Plan and Coaching Session
I spent my time this week building out a robust and comprehensive asynchronous classroom experience on Google Classroom with the support of my mentor, Ryan Allison, and my mentee and colleague, Holly Hamilton. Planning this professional development collaboratively reinforced the importance of connecting with colleagues for input, seeing the presentation from another’s perspective, and using that individualized coaching input to improve my practice.
I’ve decided that there are several essential components to an effective professional development session. First, the presentation must have interactive components within it to increase audience engagement. I didn’t want the session to just be a lecture-only style instruction, so I included breaks with questions, a poll, QR codes to resources for the viewers to scan, and an exit ticket to receive feedback at the end of the session. If this session had been administered live, I would have also worked in opportunities for collaboration and discussion, as that is often the most helpful component of a professional development session. Because this was administered asynchronously, I plan to follow up on the comments I receive to continue the conversation after the session with my colleagues. Another important element of a successful professional development session includes well-organized visuals and handouts. I spent a fair amount of time creating a visually interesting and practical presentation that was chock-full of actionable resources. I also uploaded quite a few other handouts, infographics, and slideshows I have developed in the past as resources to the Google Classroom, and ended the session with a scannable QR code to print out a poster for the viewers’ classrooms. Finally, a successful presentation on classroom tech needs to feature relevant technology! In this assignment, I used Google Classroom organization tools to maximize how the content was organized with section headers and whether something was labeled a material (resource) or assignment (required interactive element). I gave clear instructions with each assignment and made sure to include multiple methods to access the content through QR codes, links, verbal cues, and visual cues on Google Classroom.
An effective presenter needs specific qualities to create an engaging experience. They need to use enthusiasm, be knowledgeable but approachable, be flexible during live recording, be flexible to receive session feedback, create opportunities for audience participation, and be able to model the technology they are demonstrating. I feel as if I brought these qualities to the session and have already received positive feedback from both my mentor and mentee about the course content, flow, and engagement activities. Adult learners respond best when the learning is practical, applicable to their classroom, and respectful of their knowledge as educators. I made conscious efforts to include different examples of classroom types, and I mentioned how we all know about Executive Function struggles, as we are all experienced with teaching middle schoolers. I appealed to our shared knowledge as middle school educators.
A high-quality coach listens first, personalizes their support, builds the mentee’s confidence, takes time to get to know the mentee and their classroom dynamics, provides ongoing feedback, and helps teachers reach solutions to their own classroom issues. A high-quality presenter knows how to communicate clearly, keeps the audience engaged and connected to the learning, organizes the information in a clear and digestible format, and inspires their audience to try new strategies. These roles are similar in that they both require strong communication skills, mutual trust with the mentee/audience, relationship building, content expertise, and a large helping of encouragement. These roles differ in that presenting can reach many educators simultaneously, whereas coaching offers more individualized support with follow-up opportunities. An effective technology coach understands and is successful in both roles.
Technology coaches must be successful in both settings, as the job description for a District-level technology coach often provides whole-staff presentations based on the school site needs, as well as one-on-one coaching as teachers implement those new strategies. Being an effective technology coach also aligns directly with the ISTE Standards, including teaching, learning, and assessment ISTE Standard 4.4 Learning Designer. Coaches also need to successfully plan and implement professional development in alignment with ISTE Standard 4.5 Professional Learning Facilitator. Finally, coaches need to be content-area experts who encourage professional growth in Digital-Age learning environments, which aligns with ISTE Standards 4.1 Change Agent, 4.2 Connected Learner, and 4.3 Collaborator. My work with Ryan Allison and Holly Hamilton demonstrated how presentations can introduce new ideas while coaching ensures those new ideas are successfully implemented in the classroom.
