Alternative Professional Development

Why?

When thinking about my “why” (Sinek, 2009) for promoting and developing alternative Professional Development (PD), I have to think back to my “why” as a teacher. As a teacher, my “why” is simple. I want to instill a love for learning in all of my students, so they can be the best version of themselves. I want all of my students to be lifelong successful learners. By offering an alternative to Professional Learning (PL), I can allow my students to be engaged in hands-on learning which will lead to effective implementation in every classroom. It’s time to pack our things and leave the “sit and get” model of PL, because that has shown that it doesn't promote increased student achievement or effectively change student behaviors (Harapnuik, 2018).

What?

In order to promote an alternative PL for my campus,

I would first have to get my administration on board with

my idea. In order to do this, I have created a Prezi

Presentation, “Alternative Professional Development at

JAM.” This Prezi Presentation would be given via Zoom

since COVID-19 safety protocols restrict the amount of

staff gathered in a certain room. Since this presentation

will be held via Zoom, it will be recorded for anyone

who was unable to attend synchronously.

When building this presentation it was important to

me that I followed Duarte's “How to’s” on presentation building and telling a story (2013). The first thing I needed to focus on was figuring out the story I wanted to tell. THis was easy, because I started with my “WHY.” I had to then tell my story in a way that was efficient, clear, and impactful (Duarte, 2013). It was also important that my presentation had minimal text, impactful visuals, and a cohesive format throughout. This was something I made sure to follow because I do not want to fall into the routine of reading word for word from a slide, or having a presentation that causes my viewers to use 500% more brain energy and have a “death by powerpoint” (Phillips, 2014) . All of these things put together ensured I had “presentation zen” (Gonzales, 2013).

Once my presentation is over, I will send out a Google Form Survey to

begin our campus moving in the direction of this alternative PL.

How?

In order to complete this presentation there were a few things I had to

do. First I had to decide on a presentation platform. First I thought about

Google Slides and Canva, but I wanted the transitions within my

presentation to be a little bit more engaging and follow a kind of “path”.

I thought back to a website I had used in highschool- Prezi it was, and it

worked perfectly for the vision I had of this presentation. After making the

Prezi Presentation I used Google Forms to create my campus survey. This

was the perfect choice because it is easy to use for all staff members at

JAM (since we use this at every PD for attendance purposes), and it makes easy to read data charts based on staff’s answers! When I had both of these two tasks completed, I was able to easily imbed them within my Wix ePortfolio!

Credits

Prezi, Google Images, Google Forms, Wix

References

Duarte, N. [Stanford Graduate School of Business]. (2013a, March 21). Nancy Duarte: How to tell a story [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JrRQ1oQWQk

Duarte, N. [Stanford Graduate School of Business]. (2013b, February 19). Nancy Duarte: How to create better visual presentations [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so9EJoQJc-0

Gonzalez, J. [Cult of Pedagogy]. (2013, September 16). How presentation zen fixed my bad PowerPoints [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=vkrl1j0IW-c

Harapnuik, D. (2018, March 7). EDLD 5388 module 2 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X57MQ0y7T_s

Sinek, S. [TEDx Talks]. (2009, September 28). Start with why: How great leaders inspire action [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA&t=164s