September 17, 2020
Every year teachers sit in professional development designed to “teach” them something. Too often, this learning does not have any effect on what the teacher does in their classroom. One reason for this is the teacher had no choice in what training they would attend and the training they were forced to attend has no relevance to their daily duties. Another reason is that there is little or no support to implement the idea or program.
My professional learning plan is to change the way we train the faculty at my school. The plan is to move from professional development to professional learning, and even more specifically personalized professional learning through a badging system.
Faculty will earn both physical badges that they can post in their classroom/offices as well as digital badges ad they learn a new skill and implement it into their job duties. This badging system will be a personalized professional learning as I will be giving faculty a survey to find out which badges to focus on in this the initial year. I will be creating a website to host the badge information as well as content, to support faculty in earning their badges. There will be specific examples of how each skill can be applied.
In addition to the website resources, I will be hosting monthly trainings and we will focus on a new skill (badge) each month for those members of my faculty that prefer to have in-person trainings. Faculty will also have the option to view resources on the web site and earn badges at their own pace.
The duration of each professional learning opportunity will be unique to each faculty member as they can learn skills and show mastery at their own pace. I will support the faculty, no matter which way they choose to participate, by modeling and being available to answer questions, and helping them with implementation. In addition, they will be supported by the instructional specialists.
Faculty will actively participate in the training by working with the software as we learn. No sit and get trainings, they will work through the learning while we are training to ensure they have the support they need to get started.
Sandra Negro 