This week's newsletter focuses on a bit more on spotlighting the work of your fellow teachers, specifically a team of Keigwin teachers who have been working together to provide professional development on various tech tools for their building colleagues. Nicole Golia, Renee Burgess, Kaitlyn Annino, and Meliha Korkutovic all created and delivered engaging sessions during our Wednesday PD days and we asked them to share a little about what they have been working on. Meliha Korkutovic This is my second year at Keigwin as a science teacher, but I am also working on my 092 Internship this year. As a result, one of my central focuses has been on technology and helping to support teachers through the adaptive challenge hybrid teaching during a pandemic has brought upon all of us. After surveying Keigwin staff in both the fall and winter, there was a clear request for our technology-related learning to include both asynchronous / quick tech tip style videos, and also opportunities for small group learning and application of various tech tools we now had access to. I created a "Tech Tidbits" Google Folder for staff to access, where I recorded Screencastify videos of quick tech tips and helpful things I discovered this past year. For the specific PD we held last week, we really wanted to give staff an opportunity to choose the sessions we would run, as well as to choose the particular session they would like to attend. One of our surveys focused explicitly on allowing staff to choose their top sessions, which is how we ended up with the four sessions we ran: Pear Deck (Advanced), Pear Deck (Basic), Google Slides (Advanced), and Hapara & Surface Pro tips. A special thank you to Dr. Mayo Molina and Sarah Esposito for their support and assistance in bringing all of this to fruition. We hope to continue responding to our staff's needs and collaborating to best support one another! Renee Burgess and Katelyn Annino After using Pear Deck almost every day this year, Katelyn & I decided to take our learning & share the basics and the more advanced features of Pear Deck. In the Basics of Pear Deck PD, Katelyn shared the basics of how to create a Pear Deck lesson, the benefits of using the platform, and how the students can view the activity. In the Advanced Pear Deck PD, we explored the pre-made templates for SEL and content areas, practiced adding audio to slides, and focused on how to organize Pear Deck Sessions. Pear Deck is an incredible tool to help increase the engagement of our students - and a way to assess how they are performing (without audio or video on zoom). Most importantly in our PD we wanted to ensure the time for staff to explore the resources on their own, and apply their new learning to their own lessons - while providing them a resource that they can continually look back on. Nicole Golia Teaching in the virtual world has many challenges. It’s difficult to judge student engagement and participation when we are looking at black screens. I found that using aesthetically pleasing slides and creating interactive (drag and drop, open ended questions) was helpful to keep students engaged. Also, providing each student a copy allows them the opportunity to go back and revisit slides that may have relevant info for the particular lesson/topic.
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