Photo in courtesy of http://www.sonyanoonan.com/feeling-overwhelmed/
That’s me, the bee on the left. After reading the comments to my last post, I decided to do a generic video for advocating collaborative inquiry. However, almost all of the scholar articles that I have read focus on teacher collaborative inquiry and why it is a more practical and productive format of professional development than the “traditional” way, such as attending workshops. As now I have broadened the range of my targeted audiences, I have to redefine my rationale which I found challenging. Originally, I chose “collaborative inquiry” as the topic for my final vision project because I would like to change the way teachers at my school community do professional development. I had a focus and a clear “mission or task” in mind back then, but now, I feel like I’m lost in an open space. Oh well, just like the other bee says, “Just pick one flower, and start from there…” I have to start at some point, so I chose to start with the learning of making PowToon video.
I watched all the videos on the Tutorials page of the PowToon website. PowToon seems to be user-friendly and I felt confidence that I could make a presentation with this tool. On the right of the page, there is a box titled “Scientist’s Tips – Before You Start Remember.” Its “Step 1 Write Script” caught my attention. The video embedded provides me with guidelines and tips on how to write a script prior to making the slideshow or video, and so I did.
*My sketch of my storyboard.
My Challenge:
I am not an artistic person, and I realized that most of the slides in my video have the format of “one picture, one sentence.” I found that a bit “boring” and I wish I could be more creative with animation. Hopefully, I could overcome this challenge as this project progress along.
PowToon in Progress:
I have started my work on PowToon and this is what I have so far:
*Screenshot of my PowToon in progress.
This is a “tester,” but could also be my final product. I am hoping that once I could master all the different buttons and functions on the PowToon, I might try making a more enhanced one. But for now, I feel that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Photo in courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/7815007@N07/13983341233/in/photostream/
Professional development (Pro-D) is a “must do” for educators. It is important that we, educators, keep ourselves inline with the changing world, the changing curriculum, the changing pedagogy and any current educational issues. There are approximately six Pro-D days scheduled in the school year, to provide learning opportunities to educators. Teachers might attend a workshop, or do a self-directed Pro-D activity such as working on an action research, or reading academic articles, etc. Pro-D became a passive experience, and the effectiveness is questionable. Please do not get me wrong, I am not saying that attending a workshop or doing self-directed Pro-D activity individually are not effective. If the topic and issue addressed in workshop or self-directed Pro-D fits your need or the challenges that you are facing, it is worthwhile. However, I do not believe that “one size fits all” when it comes to Pro-D. Students’ learning is our ultimate goal, and I think it should be the drive of educators’ Pro-D so that our Pro-D is more practical and worthwhile. I hope to find a Pro-D format that is customized to the needs of any particular educator, or school community. When I came across “collaborative teachers inquiry,” it seems to be able to do the trick.
I like the answer of one of the interviewed teachers in the video: Why not? Why not give this new Pro-D format a try? As we encourage our students to learn collaboratively through inquiry, why not we do it ourselves? With a first-handed experience of collaborative inquiry, teachers will be able to understand and facilitate collaborative inquiry among his/her students.
My final project is to create a video to “promote” collaborative inquiry as an in-school Pro-D format. Up to date, I have decided the following contents of the video:
Why should we do collaborative inquiry? (This would be my rationale as above)
Using Edcamp as a reference, explain what the schedule of a collaborative inquiry Pro-D day would looks like.
Suggest follow-up event(s) after the Pro-D day, for example, after school gatherings for updates.
My original plan is to advocate collaborative inquiry to colleagues. However, during my planning process, I thought the video could be designed for a broader range of audiences. As we always encourage students to learn and inquiry collaboratively, if I change content #1 from explaining my rationale to explaining collaborative inquiry and its benefits in general, the video could be used for students, or even parents advisory committee (PAC) to address concerns in school community. But if I do so, my project’s goal will become advocating collaborative inquiry in general, rather than aiming to make a change in our Pro-D practice. What should I do? Should I, or should I not make such a change in content? Please help, my PLN’s colleagues!
References:
Marcinek, Andrew. “Edcamps: Remixing Professional Development.” Eutopia. 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2015. <http://www.edutopia.org/blog/edcamps-remixing-profesional-development-andrew-marcinek>.
“System Leaders and Collaborative Inquiry.” Capacity Building K-12 (2015). Queen’s Printer for Ontario. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.
Link: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/CBS_SystemLeaders.pdf
At the beginning of this week, I started to think about my “vision of the future.” I re-read my blog postings of the reading reviews, and I leaned towards setting my vision on fostering reading at school by providing tools and platforms to students to share about their reading using information communication technology. However, my observation at my school yesterday, Nov. 12th, 2015, changed my whole plan.
Yesterday was the Surrey School District (SD36) Curriculum Implementation Day. It was a non-instructional day and the Surrey Teachers’ Association (STA) has provided us with the agenda for the day as well as supportive resources that we could study. My school is a small school, and yesterday, there were only 11 teaching staffs at the school: 9 classroom teachers, one learner support team (LST) teacher who is also our professional development committee (Pro-D) chair, and myself. We all gathered in the library at the beginning of the day, and briefly went through the supportive resources that we had received via email from the STA. Our Pro-D chair suggested we study the articles and resources being sent out by the STA, and also, explore the B.C. new curriculum on its website. One of the staff asked if we need to gather in grade groups and work collaboratively as suggested in the agenda, however, all staffs agreed that we will work on our own pace and it is individual’s choice to work collaboratively with others. Hence, there was no afternoon session set for collaborative work. I had observed that there was two or three colleagues work collaboratively for a short period of time in the morning, but for the rest of the day, colleagues (including myself) worked independently in their own classroom, exploring the new curriculum on their own and at their own pace.
As I explored one of the documents titled “Curriculum Framework,” a session in there caught my attention: “How? Structures to support investing curriculum.” Moreover, in that session, there are two terms that spark my interest: Edcamp, and collaborative inquiry. This is the first time I heard about “Edcamp,” I was curiously to know what it is, therefore, I spent some time investigating it. The following video that I found provided me with a clear picture of what Edcamp is.
Video courtesy of http://www.edutopia.org/edcamp-organizer-resources
That is what I would like to see happening at my school, my “vision of the future”: colleagues work collaboratively together, to reflect our teaching practice, inquire new pedagogy or methods, share our ideas and support each other.
“It is ironic that, with all we know about
the benefits of collaborative, inquiry-
based learning for students, we struggle to create the same rich learning opportunities for teachers.” (Schnellert & Butler, 2014)
At this moment, the following are the goals I have in mind:
to encourage and support peers to build their personal learning network (PLN)
to advocate collaborative inquiry model as a professional development activity
to provide opportunities and forums, either meeting after school or using social media, for sharing idea
I plan to create a Powtoon video to advocate PLN as well as collaborative inquiry within our school community. However, I have never used Powtoon before, there is inquiry that I need to do on “how to use Powtoon” prior to creating the video for my final vision project. Plan might get changed as I go through the process, but at least this is where I am starting.
References:
Adams, P., and Townsend, D. (2014). From action research to collaborative inquiry: A framework for researchers and practitioners. Education Canada, 54(5), 12–15. Link: http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/action-research-collaborative-inquiry
Edcamp Foundation. http://www.edcamp.org
Powtoon: Brings Awesomeness to Your Presentations. http://www.powtoon.com
“Resources for Organizing an Edcamp.” Edutopia. 24 Mar. 2014. Web. 12 Nov. 2015. <http://www.edutopia.org/edcamp-organizer-resources>.
Schnellert, L., and Butler, D.L. (2014). Collaborative inquiry: Empowering teachers in their professional development. Education Canada, 54(3), 42–44. Link: http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/collaborative-inquiry
The world is changing, the technology is changing, the ways that students learn is changing, and so as the role of a teacher-librarian (TL). Almost all of the resources, i.e. books, articles, etc., that I have read stated that the teacher librarian is expected to take up the role of “curriculum leadership.” Scheirer (2000) had included a list of professional competencies for TL in her article, two of the competencies really stood out “BIG” to me:
places a priority on staff relationships and leadership in the implementation of change
provides leadership.
Photo in courtesy of: http://www.rakisradresources.com/2015/01/where-to-find-your-own-professional.html
At my last post, I shared that I was a beginner at building my personal learning network (PLN) using one or more tools mentioned in the above photo. I am still “lurking” on social media, while my colleagues are more knowledgable on tools mentioned than I am and are possibly sharing their experience in teaching actively via those tools. I would question myself: Who am I to provide “leadership”? I guess if I HAVE to be an educational leader, I COULD push myself forward and “force” myself into the doing. However, as being a person who does not like to be the center of attention, I would be pushing myself into doing something that I am uncomfortable with and I do not think the thrust would last for long. As I was researching for ideas on how could I fulfil the role within my capability, I came across the video below:
“As a school librarian, the goal should be to look at what students are learning and what teachers are teaching in the classroom and see where your knowledge and skills can fit into that plan.” (Dees et al., p. 11)
From my research, I have learned that being a educational leader does not mean that I have to be “ahead” of everyone in current educational issues, to be an expert on technology, nor being a professional development workshop speaker. I could be a support staff working collaboratively with teachers, suggesting technological tools which are applicable to the teachers’ teaching and students’ learning. In another word, I could be an “educational coach.”
A few staffs at my school have decided to try the FreshGrade program as an alternative for parent-teacher communication tool. As I had attended a summer professional development workshop on the program, I approached those staffs who would like to try and offered help in troubleshooting if they have any questions. This is the first time I made myself “visible” in new technology, and I am glad that I was able to help a few colleagues and assist a colleague in presenting a workshop on FreshGrade. I do not consider myself as an “educational coach” yet, but I think I had made a big leap in the role.
What can I do differently, or new, this year that better support the staff at my school?
I am currently not a teacher-librarian at my school. Imagine that I am, I would set the following goals for this school:
Be proactive in building a relationship with the individual staff at the school. Collaboration is built on a relationship with trust, and only through collaboration that I would be able to know “what students are learning and what teachers are teaching.” With that knowledge, I will then be able to suggest educational readings, professional development opportunities, or digital tools that would enhance the teachers’ teaching.
“Crack out of my shell” – Instead of continuing to lurk on social media, I have to try sharing my own ideas. If I do not share or tweet, how could I encourage other staffs to do so? I have to extend my personal learning network, so that I could share my experience with others and encourage others to build their own PLN.
Two goals would be my limit for this year, as I had mentioned in my last post, I have to slow down and take small steps at a time. I think I could achieve these two goals even being a music teacher (not a TL) this year. Hence, this would be a good start.
References:
Dees, Dianne, Alisande Mayer, Heather Morin, and Elaine Willis. “Librarians as Leaders in Professional Learning Communities through Technology, Literacy, and Collaboration.” Library Media Connection 29.2 (2010): 10-13. Web. 22 Oct. 2015. Link: http://coekate.murraystate.edu/media/professors/files/koren/LibrariansLeadLearnCommunities.pdf
Raki, Heidi. Raki’s Rad Resources. Web. http://www.rakisradresources.com
Scheirer, Bev. “The Changing Role of the Teacher-Librarian in the Twenty-first Century.” (2000). University of Saskatchewan. Web. 22 Oct. 2015. Link: http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/scheirer/scheirer.htm
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