Last week was our annual PD Summer Seminar, developed for teachers. Sixty-four voluntary participants attended throughout the week – including educators from two additional Jesuit schools in our Jesuit province (UCS): Loyola Academy of St. Louis and Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas (TX). During the week, we learned about our new way proceeding (on campus and remotely) in the coming academic year, and we practiced concrete strategies for remote learning. Why? After our spring semester, we felt positive about our remote learning experiences. We had specific systems and supports in place, we tried new strategies, and we set high expectations for student learning and engagement – yet we remained flexible. Our belief in continuous quality improvement always challenges us to continue to get better. This PD Summer Seminar was the vehicle to help us get better. Below are 7 qualities of this experience that might prove useful to other schools and teachers when planning, implementing, and evaluating professional development. Coincidentally, teachers can use these same qualities with students as they plan for the coming year. Mission Especially during this pandemic, we are renewed in our mission as a Jesuit high school. Despite tremendous challenges (and trauma), we are hopeful we can continue to creep toward joyful giving through companionship and accompaniment with one another, through prayer, and by being reflective practitioners. As Ignatian educators in the Jesuit tradition, we live a certain way with one another and with our students. The Magis – How does the ongoing pandemic and racial inequity and unrest continuously challenge us to evaluate and be creative in new responses and in renewed reconciliation? As teachers and as students, how can we challenge one another in hopeful creativity and renewed reconciliation? The First Principle and Foundation - For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God. Everything. As teachers and as students, how do we understand and live this ideal? How can we help one another to see this? The Life of St. Ignatius – “Ever since Manresa, the pilgrim had the habit when he ate with anyone not to speak at the table except to answer briefly; but he listened to what was said and noted some things which he took as an occasion to speak about God; and when the meal was finished, he did so.” (Powers of Imaging: Ignatius de Loyola - Antonio de Nicholas). As teachers and as students, how are we attentive to others? How do we note and speak to God? Cura Personalis – How do we simplify content and skills, while adding three essential components students need to be successful: executive functioning skills, digital competencies, and building trust and communities (on campus and remotely) by being authentic and allowing students to be authentic and feel supported. Jesuit Universal Apostolic Preferences – How do we walk with the marginalized (for us that is black students, GLBTQ students, students who are socio-economically disadvantaged, students – all – who experience trauma, and those students who have diagnosed learning differences and as such have school Learning Plans)? Especially today, how do we examine the impact of the pandemic and racial unrest on students and families? During this time, how do we accompany youth – living in the tension of competing priorities, all the while being hopeful amidst the continuous reality of an uncertain future? Ignatian Indifference (when simplifying curriculum) – What’s the big deal? A colleague raised this question during a conversation earlier in the PD Summer Seminar week. In terms of content, what’s a big deal for us to cover? Why? Is it because it’s essential or is it because we have a predisposition toward the content or skills? What’s most important? What’s not a big deal if students don’t get it this year? Indifference (Ignatian) means being detached enough from things, people, or experiences to be able either to take them up or to leave them aside, depending on whether they help us to “to praise, reverence, and serve God” (Spiritual Exercises 23). How can we apply this concept to curriculum choices we make: to simply and slow down? How are we living in Ignatian indifference and how can we model that for students? Students: How can we work with students to consider the life, choices, and way of St. Ignatius, to help us to know Jesus and God better? Data & Talent We designed our PD Summer Seminar after synthesizing survey results from faculty, students, and parents. Throughout the spring semester, we continuously surveyed and gathered data, talked with stakeholders during remote learning, and changed things up. One central question we posed to teachers: What do you need to be successful in the coming year, if we were to continue to be remote? During conversations with stakeholders, we were careful listeners, noting resources, tools, and strategies students and teachers need to be successful during remote learning. Our PD Summer Seminar design was the result of our attentiveness to needs. Who does what well? During our design process, we identified Area Experts in our building, based on experiences from March – May. We offered Area Experts opportunities to lead sessions through the PD Summer Seminar: teachers-teaching-teachers. This model has many unintended positive results: it provides Area Experts opportunities to lead; teachers are open to being led by their peers; and it gives everyone opportunities to practice with our technology infrastructures before the year begins. Students: How does data collection through student surveys and conversations drive our classrooms? How can we use Student Experts to help with technology and to help animate content and skills this year? Logical & Purposeful Design We designed our PD Summer Seminar with logic and flow that is similar to what students could experience in our courses this year. We began by introducing larger, philosophical and theoretical frameworks: Teaching and Learning in a New Model (session 1) and Creating Classroom Models for Remote Learning (session 2). We began with the why. We asked teachers to integrate research and external best practices with their own experiences from the spring to create new resources for themselves and others. Next, we narrowed our focus by re-introducing our digital platforms that we use with students: OnCampus and MSTeams (sessions 3 & 4). Third, breakout sessions led by area experts re-introduced participants to specific tech tools they can use during blended learning this year (sessions 5 & 6). The PD Summer Seminar ended with broader conversations about classwork, homework, assessment, curriculum initiatives, simplification, themes, creativity, and collaboration (sessions 7 & 8). There was strategy to our design. There was an ebb and flow. There was an effective interplay between offering content and practicing skills. Students: How can we revisit our academic curriculum, using logic and purpose, for students? Research, Best Practices, Experience The PD Summer Seminar sessions were rooted in research and best practices. Throughout the design of the Seminar, we gathered relevant research and best practices. As we continued to shape each Seminar session, we carefully chose specific research pieces for support. We asked Seminar participants to come to sessions having read the research and completed pre-session reflections and surveys. Finally, we embedded the research into session content, frameworks, and projects. We challenged participants to be reflective practitioners – using their experiences (IPP reflection and experience) to animate a new (and improved) way forward this coming year (IPP action and evaluation). Students: how can we work to integrate student experiences, reflection, action, and evaluation in the coming year? Practical & Product-Based Our PD Summer Seminar began with philosophical and theoretical frameworks: an overview of our schedule and building models for remote learning. But, we did not stay there. Quickly (after day 1), we moved to teaching and practicing. We provided concrete and practical strategies – tools – teachers could use in the coming year. Each day, we used meta-cognitive reflection to challenge teachers to articulate what, from the days, they will use. In addition, we embedded projects throughout the week. Participants walked away having either created or contributed to building individual and group products for use in the coming year. We began work with an Inventory Project that challenged Seminar participants to integrate research-based components into their way of proceeding in the coming year. These included how to help those most vulnerable by employing trauma-informed practices, culturally responsive teaching strategies, and suggestions for students with our Learning Plans. We continued by offering a session where Seminar participants worked together to develop strategies for our Remote Learning Classrooms. In both projects, we reminded Seminar participants throughout the week to continue to build and “add to” these evolving works. Throughout the week we introduced resources for Seminar participants to “contribute to” and use in their own Inventory Projects and Classroom Modeling Projects. We asked participants to comment on and contribute to our school’s Remote Learning Handbook. We asked Seminar Participants to look at their curriculum through the Jesuit Universal Apostolic Preferences (especially Walking with the Marginalized and Accompanying Youth). We provided strategies for curriculum simplification, and we challenged participants to continue to think about their own curriculum through the lenses of being creative and collaborative. PD Summer Seminar participants left the week with concrete frameworks and products that they worked on – individually and as a group – throughout the week, to use in the coming year. Students: How can we embed frameworks and project-base learning with students during our classes this year? Walking with the Marginalized Walking with the marginalized (in particular, black students, those who have experienced trauma, students with Learning Plans) is a priority during an academic year that is hybrid (on campus and remote) and unpredictable. During the Seminar, we re-introduced trauma-informed teaching practices, culturally responsive teaching strategies, and methods for assisting students with Learning Plans. Students: Our new way of proceeding impacts those on the margins. How will we continue to embed relevant strategies to help these students and how can we continuously respond to their needs through research-based strategies, best practices, and based upon our existing experiences? Modeling We are living in a new and different reality. When we return to school, our way of proceeding will be influenced by trauma and by circumstances that have required us to change our facilities. PD Summer Seminar teachers participating on campus during the week got a preview of what is to come: they saw a building changed and they practiced safety procedures. Our classrooms are different. Seats are spaced 6’ apart in every classroom. Non-traditional spaces are now classrooms. New technology has been added, while previous technology in place in our building is no longer usable. Teachers practiced wearing masks, continuously sanitizing, and maintaining 6’ of distance. This stuff is strange and hard. But, because we want to succeed in school, we are adapting and flexible. PD Summer Seminar teachers participating remotely experienced what students experience, and they practiced about how they will be teaching and how students will be learning in the coming year. Finally, the PD Summer Seminar integrated choice and flexibility:
During the PD Summer Seminar, we purposefully modeled choice and flexibility. Students: How can provide our learners with voice and choice this year? How can we model and expect flexibility with students? Meta-Cognition and Growth During the PD Summer Seminar, we frequently challenged participants to “step out” of the Seminar – noting specific design strategies they could use in the coming year. I stopped sessions and said, “Let’s take a step back, note, and add to our list of strategies” – not only challenging participants to list strategies embedded in their experiences but also asking them to look at the overall way we were proceeding – for clues on how teachers could teach in the coming year. This meta-cognition is essential. Concrete lists of take-aways is important. The final session of the Seminar (session 9) was a review of all the content and skills from the week. During the review, we encouraged participants to break open their notes, highlight important concepts, circle ideas, and underline important strategies. Finally, we challenged teachers to revisit/create two goals for the coming year, perhaps based on the Seminar. I encouraged faculty to revisit their Growth & Renewal Reflections (from May) and offered these questions:
Tying the PD Summer Seminar to other institutional frameworks– like our existing Growth & Renewal – challenges teachers to make sense of new knowledge and skills in the context of predictable and supportive processes. Students: How can we continuously remind students of connections in our classes and beyond, during the school year?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Pete MussoAssistant Principal, Curriculum & Instruction Archives
May 2022
Categories |