Growing Schools Through Professional Development

1. Growing Schools Through Professional Development INLS 745, 3/26/2013

2. Agenda and Class Business Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class • Research Model (HW3) due next week • Critical Friend Evaluation #2 due 4/9 • Starter questions on Sakai (under Resources  Assigments)

3. Why Us? Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class • Why school librarians? • Faculty meetings are usually held in the school library • We know everyone in the building as educators and often as people • We are familiar with everyone’s curriculum and standards • We stay aware of emerging technologies and other resources that might be helpful in a school setting • We have knowledge of the school’s “big picture” needs, challenges, and opportunities • We are leaders in the school!

4. There are many ways to be a leader... but being a leader is not negotiable. - Judy Lawson, UM School of Information

5. Teachers as Learners Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class • For starters, what’s the SAME? • Many (most) aspects of planning professional development are identical to planning instruction for students: • Must attend to diverse learners • Inquiry-based, “minds-on” instruction is key • Backward design is critical • And one thing will ALWAYS be a goal… • Teachers, like students (and librarians!) still need to practice thinking critically

6. Teachers as Learners Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class http://tinyurl.com/745pd1

7. Text Protocol Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class • You will each be assigned 2-3 pages of the Growing Schools reading to focus on for this protocol • Spend 5 minutes looking over your section and choose one brief (one paragraph max) passage that you think is particularly meaningful for your work

8. Text Protocol Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class • For each passage: • The person who chose the passage will take up to three minutes to: • Level One: Read the passage aloud • Level Two: Say what she/he thinks about the passage (interpretation, connection to past work, etc.) • Level Three: Say what she/he sees as the implications for school librarians • Group will respond for up to 2 minutes

9. Prioritizing Needs for PD Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class • Your principal comes to you and says “We need to fill one 30-minute slot at the next faculty meeting. Can you lead a professional development session for the staff?” • How do you decide what need to focus on? • Whose need? (Hint: Not the library’s!) • How do you know what those needs are?

10. Group or Whole-Staff PD Session E-Mail or Similar • Common Core rollout • School Improvement Plan / • strategic planning • New assessments • School technology initiatives • Staffing updates • Procedure changes • Upcoming calendar items • (like the book fair) Discussion Board or Similar Blog Post or Similar • Book discussions • Unit / lesson planning • Best practices / resource • sharing • Book / resource reviews • Routine updates (like • circulation counts) From Harris, Christopher. 2012. “From FYI to PLC: How Our System Transformed Meetings Into Productive Conversations.” in Growing Schools: Librarians as Professional Developers. Ed. Debbie Abilock, Kristin Fontichiaro, and Violet H. Harada. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Adapted from Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill. 1994. First Things First: To Live, To Love, To Learn, to Leave a Legacy. New York: Simon & Schuster.

11. Prioritizing PD Needs Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class http://tinyurl.com/745pdelem http://tinyurl.com/745pdms http://tinyurl.com/745pdhs

12. Prioritizing Needs for PD Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class • Spend 5 minutes reading the school profile to yourself and making notes. • With your group, fill in the chart with areas of need (especially if you feel the librarian could help with them) based on what you’ve read, focusing on the top-left box. • For each area of need in the top left box, also provide ONE piece of evidence you would look for to know whether your PD was successful.

13. Prioritizing PD Needs Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class http://tinyurl.com/745pdelem http://tinyurl.com/745pdms http://tinyurl.com/745pdhs

14. Looking Ahead Professional Development: Why Us? What’s Unique about Teachers as Learners? Text Protocol Prioritizing Needs Wrap-Up / Next Week’s Class • Next week: Research Models (HW3) • Contribute to wiki! • Looking ahead: Guest speaker on 4/9; HW4 due 4/16; last blog post due 4/23; portfolio due 4/30 (whew!)