APPLIED DIGITAL LEARNING JOURNEY&BLOG
Innovate, Teach, Iterate
Alternate Professional Learning: A Call to Action
Why
​I have been fortunate to participate in some incredible professional learning through out my career as an educator.
What made them so incredible?
They all had the 5 key principles of effective professional development. The learning happened over the course of a semester, or the entire school year. When the concepts were modeled, I had so much fun learning, that I could not wait to implement it in my classroom. The support staff that helped me with implementation were amazing and supportive. Both of these experiences that I had were discipline specific. One was focused on writing, The Heart of Texas Writing Project. This particular PD was created by the University of Texas for teachers. Another PD that changed how I taught was through a museum here in town, the Thinkery. I participated in their EdExchange program that empowers educators to use technology and innovative practices in diverse learning environments to inspire students in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.This program develops educators’ capacity to deliver and support high-quality, STEAM-based, and technology-centered educational experiences for underserved youth to equip and inspire them to become the next generation of creative problem solvers.
Educators in the EdExchange program experience hands-on professional development workshops at Thinkery, where they collaborate with museum staff, subject matter experts, and each other. Thinkery then provides the opportunity for 6–8 weeks of on-campus collaboration to support educators as they implement STEAM-based activities and lessons with their students. At the end of the EdExchange program, educators convene at a showcase to “exchange” ideas, share lessons, and learn from one another.
When you have amazing experiences it makes the learning experiences that are not helpful stand out even more. However, it is through these great experiences that I know exactly what makes professional learning experiences impactful to educators and students, and I want other educators to also have these amazing learning experiences.
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My why is that when we know better, we do better. As an educator, I know that the more I learn, the better I can teach students to become critical thinkers and problem solvers. All educators should have effective professional learning experiences.
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What
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Alternate Professional Learning: A Call to Action presentation, where I promote the need for change in professional learning. My objective is to use Canva slides as visual aid while personally presenting and promoting alternative professional learning to administration using a script.
The How
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My go to throughout the program has been to use Canva for video creation or infographics. I decided to use slides instead of video. At first, I wanted to use Audacity to record a voice over for the slides, but decided against it when I ran into some problems. It kept looping the sound I embedded in each slide and it did not flow. I have used audacity before and it is fairly easy to edit and use if you are using a video presentation in Canva as opposed to slides. I learned how to imbed a Canva slideshow into Wix. This was simple compared to adding audio and I was pleased to learn something new.