Area of Achievement III
What is the area of achievement that is the focus of this section of your portfolio?
Description: I have led numerous Professional Development sessions for faculty throughout my career. All of the PD sessions have been about a technology tool or feature that educators needed to learn, in order to become more productive 21st century educators.
What items have you chosen and why? Describe each item individually, answering as appropriate, who, what, why, where, and when.
Evidence:
Strengths and weaknesses in this area of achievement?
I feel that the sessions I have developed for the staff are well organized and the teachers walk away with a much stronger understanding of how to use the tools which were the focus of the session. I also have recently grown in providing Professional Development without having led a live session. Through the use of Camtasia Studio and Snag-It I am able to develop customized video tutorials that staff can refer to at later dates. However, I feel that there is much more to do at the moment. There currently is no centralized location for these resources. The school’s network has thousands of folders, and few teachers know where to find many of these resources. In the future, I plan to work on this by creating a Professional Development website and YouTube Channel to create the much-needed centralized location of resources.
What are the positive and negative lessons you learned from focusing on this particular area?
Through the planning of my Professional Development sessions, I gained some insight into how adults learn. I try very hard to tailor my sessions to my audience. As excited I am about all aspects of technology, I have learned to cut straight to the point and teach the features, tools, and software that will be most relevant to my audience. If I am speaking to arts teachers, I am going to approach my session in a different way than I would when speaking to lower school teachers. Although both sets of teachers have the same students, the routines and atmospheres of the classrooms differ greatly.
One hard lesson that I have had to learn is that many teachers are reluctant to attend Professional Development sessions which are not required by the administration. Many teachers at my school are in the habit sending me an email when any question having to do with technology arises. Setting up regular or semi-regular Professional Development sessions have been successful for the 10-12 teachers that are motivated to learn more. However, many other teachers wait until they have an issue and then seek help. Although my supervisor and I are trying to curb the requests of faculty unwilling to attend the sessions, the email requests are still a daily occurrence.
How will you use what you have learned?
I will continue to strive to keep my Professional Development sessions tailored to my audience, and work with my school and administrators to add incentives for teachers to attend the Professional Development sessions. I will also begin to work on a database and/or website that have all of the technology resources in one place.
How do you plan to continue working on this area of achievement?
I will continue to design Professional Development sessions for the faculty at my school. In addition, we are current in the process of writing the Technology Plan and the phase for faculty development of technology skills will begin next year.
Identify the primary professional licensure standards addressed by this area of achievement, and describe how they are met by your items.
MASSACHUSETTS LICENSURE STANDARDS FOR INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY
1) Technology tools for word processing, databases, spreadsheets, print/graphic utilities, multi- and hypermedias, presentations, videos for the purpose of formal and informal assessment, instruction, and administration for professional and instructional use.
2) Communications and research tools such as email, world wide web, web browsers, and other online applications that link to the state standards and requirements, for professional and instructional use.
3) Criteria for selection, evaluation, and use of appropriate computer/technology based materials to support a variety of instructional methods.
Description: I have led numerous Professional Development sessions for faculty throughout my career. All of the PD sessions have been about a technology tool or feature that educators needed to learn, in order to become more productive 21st century educators.
What items have you chosen and why? Describe each item individually, answering as appropriate, who, what, why, where, and when.
Evidence:
- SMART Board Handout – This handout was made last year, when I led a series of Professional Development sessions, teaching the faculty how to maximize the features available with SMART Boards and its accompanying software. In addition, I led another session that also focused on how to set up the Mobile SMART Board which was attended by all City Year volunteers in the school at the time.
- Computer Lab Policies & Laptop Protocols, Google Study Guide – At the beginning of this year I was allotted time to lead a Professional Development session for middle school teachers. During this session I focused on showing the teachers the Google Web Search and Image Search tools the students would also be learning. I also introduced Diigo and how it can be used in their classrooms, and went over the new policies and procedures that would be implemented this year. Upon the completion of teaching the Search Strategies Unit to students, I also forwarded the intensive study guide I made for students to the middle school faculty. This study guide both reminded them of how they should encourage their students to research topics, but also provided them with a written out set of tips and instructions for using each Google Search Tool.
- Email Invite for Making a Newsletter Template & Other Weekly Training Sessions – In September, I led a session open to all faculty, which was focused on creating a template in Microsoft Word. During this session, I taught the five teachers whom attended how to use Word Art, text boxes, how to import images from devices, and the picture tools available in Microsoft Word.
- Email Invites, Responses, & Follow-up for Administrators – This year I made it a priority to train the lower school principal, middle school principle, creative arts director, parent outreach coordinator, development team, and dining hall staff on how to use the Educational Networks Website Portal. Educational Networks is the company the school uses to host the website, and the portal allows those with the appropriate web-editing privileges to add events and news items to the homepage, add/edit text to pages within the website, and upload media to particular pages. Due to conflicting schedules, I also created a series of video tutorials using Snag-It to provide the administrators and staff with a resource they could refer to in later dates.
Strengths and weaknesses in this area of achievement?
I feel that the sessions I have developed for the staff are well organized and the teachers walk away with a much stronger understanding of how to use the tools which were the focus of the session. I also have recently grown in providing Professional Development without having led a live session. Through the use of Camtasia Studio and Snag-It I am able to develop customized video tutorials that staff can refer to at later dates. However, I feel that there is much more to do at the moment. There currently is no centralized location for these resources. The school’s network has thousands of folders, and few teachers know where to find many of these resources. In the future, I plan to work on this by creating a Professional Development website and YouTube Channel to create the much-needed centralized location of resources.
What are the positive and negative lessons you learned from focusing on this particular area?
Through the planning of my Professional Development sessions, I gained some insight into how adults learn. I try very hard to tailor my sessions to my audience. As excited I am about all aspects of technology, I have learned to cut straight to the point and teach the features, tools, and software that will be most relevant to my audience. If I am speaking to arts teachers, I am going to approach my session in a different way than I would when speaking to lower school teachers. Although both sets of teachers have the same students, the routines and atmospheres of the classrooms differ greatly.
One hard lesson that I have had to learn is that many teachers are reluctant to attend Professional Development sessions which are not required by the administration. Many teachers at my school are in the habit sending me an email when any question having to do with technology arises. Setting up regular or semi-regular Professional Development sessions have been successful for the 10-12 teachers that are motivated to learn more. However, many other teachers wait until they have an issue and then seek help. Although my supervisor and I are trying to curb the requests of faculty unwilling to attend the sessions, the email requests are still a daily occurrence.
How will you use what you have learned?
I will continue to strive to keep my Professional Development sessions tailored to my audience, and work with my school and administrators to add incentives for teachers to attend the Professional Development sessions. I will also begin to work on a database and/or website that have all of the technology resources in one place.
How do you plan to continue working on this area of achievement?
I will continue to design Professional Development sessions for the faculty at my school. In addition, we are current in the process of writing the Technology Plan and the phase for faculty development of technology skills will begin next year.
Identify the primary professional licensure standards addressed by this area of achievement, and describe how they are met by your items.
MASSACHUSETTS LICENSURE STANDARDS FOR INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY
1) Technology tools for word processing, databases, spreadsheets, print/graphic utilities, multi- and hypermedias, presentations, videos for the purpose of formal and informal assessment, instruction, and administration for professional and instructional use.
2) Communications and research tools such as email, world wide web, web browsers, and other online applications that link to the state standards and requirements, for professional and instructional use.
3) Criteria for selection, evaluation, and use of appropriate computer/technology based materials to support a variety of instructional methods.