August PD: Part 2

Our focus question for this year is HOW MIGHT WE? We even got temporary tattoos and stickers to help us keep this question in the forefront of our work during in-service days.

Day 2 the question was: How might we use our collective strengths to improve teaching and learning? 

Teachers often ask for time to learn new tools that have come out during the year. The team organizing professional development came up with 9 tools they thought teachers would want to know more about. Some, such as Classroom, has been in practice in some classrooms and others, such as FlipGrid were new. We also wanted to show teachers the idea of student choice. 

With our goal of using our collective strengths, I came up with a choice grid, based on a Hyperdocs template. 

There are 9 tools to choose from. Each square goes to an individual doc where a description of the tool, the room to meet in, some links, and the ability to take notes was available. Using the Edcamp model, I encouraged teachers to switch sessions if something wasn't working and to take notes so that other teachers could benefit if they missed a session. In the center of the choice grid is a link to share #onenewthing they learned or wanted to share. 

Casey Bell came out with a very timely article which fit perfectly as a take away for the activity: How to Push the Boundaries of School with Dynamic Learning. This activity was well received but we could have used about a half hour more for time. We will use it again later in the year.