It’s a pretty well-known fact that I have an attention span of no more than 20 minutes. I’m sure other adults are the same yet we are expected to sit through a long training to implement ideas in the classroom. Too often teachers go to a lecture on active learning strategies in a lecture style format. If it doesn’t work in the classroom, then it doesn’t work for adults. Studies have shown that direct instruction does not maximize learning- why on earth would it work for adults? Teachers need more control, input, and different strategies into their learning in order to be effective.
Be purposeful in planning
Are you just communicating events and information? Could that be done a different way like Twitter, communication applications like Remind, or shared calendars? Staff development should be focused on conversations to improve the school. Taking valuable time (when there is so little of it) is detrimental towards teacher learning especially when there are tools out there to help communicate efficiently. Spend the time to discover if every teacher really needs this content and allow them a choice in their learning. Sometimes there are times when you want others to gain more background knowledge to bring to the classroom or conversation, that’s where flipped learning comes in handy.
The Flipped Professional Development
Have you ever found yourself spewing information and people are passively taking notes? In this model, what is the difference between the presenter and a computer? None! If your information isn’t very complex, then record it or make it into a presentation and have others listen and watch on their own with an exit slip or check for understanding. Come back together and then discuss the content. You will find that people take more away and feel more accomplished when learning is in their hands. Here are some great tools to get you started flipping your next Professional Development Session.
Part of the Google Education Suite, this powerful tool can create a professional looking presentation that is easy for others to access and share. The downfall is that there is no way to integrate voice-overs to help communicate.
A free digital screen recorder if you want to show content from your computer. The downfall of Screen-0-matic is that editing is not very user-friendly nor do they have ways to spice up the presentation.
A great video creation tool that has many fun animations and scenes to choose from. They own the maximum of 5 minutes video unless you upgrade to become one of their paid members.
The value of Face to Face time
With these modern advances and social media being part of our daily lives, we often forget one underlying truth about the technology we use. We are humans that are driven by the need to communicate and relate to each other. Technology may evolve at an exponential rate, but the desire to talk never changes. We need to see how technology can be used to enhance the world around us. Relationships are more critical than ever before. You can’t rely completely on technology to communicate your message. It is critical to have discourse and a chance to interact with content you flip.
Academy of Edification 