When planning for online teacher PD sessions, standard typically practice involves soliciting possible agenda items from the teachers using a shared Google doc to determine their current needs, to supplement other issues we feel appropriate to cover on a particular day.
While this agenda call-out was done for this particular PD session, we decided that a break with routine was called for. Key objectives for the day were to get the teachers to focus on what attributes are necessary to be a successful online teacher, and what qualities of online courses promote student achievement. Because our teachers generally design and create their own online courses, it was important for them to view their teaching and course development as separate, but linked, entities. Secondly, although creating collaborative group work for students is often discussed from a theoretical perspective during our PD sessions, we know that few of our online classes effectively incorporate cooperative learning. Providing direct experience was appropriate. Finally, as none of our online teachers have ever been an online student themselves, we wanted to provide them with an experience that gave them more insight into what their online students experience, something a little out of their normal comfort zone, something a little ill-defined. This thinking led to the development of the PD day.
Of the 15 SECPSD online teachers, 14 planned to attend the PD day. In advance of the session, the teachers were divided into four groups with three or four in each group. At the start of the day, the pre-selected groups were announced. Each group was then given a sealed envelope and taken to separate rooms. The only other instructions were to take with them their laptops and cell phones. Once in their room, each group was instructed to open their envelopes to reveal the day’s work. All groups had the same task.
The groups were formed based on the following criteria:
- Experienced online teachers were mixed with novice online teachers
- Teachers from the same school were placed into separate groups
- A husband and wife pair of online teachers were separated
- Subject specialists (e.g. math teachers) were separated