By G. FAITH LITTLE

Professional development at the end of the school year. What does it look like? Like backwards planning for units in the classroom, we start with the end in mind when it comes to designing our annual In Practice: Teaching and Learning conference. We ask ourselves how we can best meet the needs of teachers late in the school year and how teachers will be feeling when they arrive on the morning of Chancellors Day. 

With the end in mind, we set our goals. Sessions are designed for teachers to:

• Relate with other teachers
• Reflect on the school year
• Reset expectations of themselves & others
• Refresh their outlook and practices

​Focusing on practice — where practice makes, not perfection, but more practice — we examine what practice looks like. 

Then we get busy creating each workshop!

Critical reflection: We get teachers talking by creating a space for them to reflect on their experiences over the year, share promising practices, and be critically reflective about their challenges. We use multiple modalities for teacher expression — curriculum inventory, graphing and mapping, music, poetry and prose, recipes, and reflection unbound.

Peer-to-peer discourse: We get teachers trying by engaging them with what they already know and do. We create a space for teachers to think about their world from new perspectives, and we do this with high interaction and engagement, rather than passive listening. This year, we explored the Danielson framework with the goal of achieving a deeper understanding of the framework, and drafting a personal action plan. Teachers are able to choose which Danielson component they want to investigate.

Inspiration: We get teachers together by designing an experience that actively engages participants in a relevant topic, provides clarifying information about the topic, and creates space for them to share prior knowledge and experiences as they consider new practices. Teachers enjoy an experience of one of our signature workshop series during this session: Critical Incidents in the Classroom, Need to Know for Early-Career Teachers, Keep the Kids Talking, Literacy Unbound, Teaching 21st Century Skills, and Writing for Publication.

Strategic thinking: We get teachers thinking by using sensory and design thinking strategies and incorporating academic research into the development of practice. Teachers connect personally as they build bridges to bring this work into their own classrooms. Teachers choose one of three sessions: design thinking, responding to research or sensory thinking.

Teachers who arrived at In Practice in the morning, some worn out from a rough school year and others thinking about summer plans, ended the final session with one word to describe their day, calling them out from around the room:

​As we closed out our day, we remembered, together, that there is no such thing as perfect. Instead, we are and will always be: in practice. 

TAGS: G. FAITH LITTLE, PD AT TC

By JORGE BELTRAN

Each year at our Big Learning Challenge institute, we harness the power of 21st century capacities and offer educators the opportunity to navigate the project-based learning process as participants, as well as teachers looking to implement new instructional strategies in their classrooms. 

At our last institute, we explored the theme of seeds, and set out to address the question: what happens when you plant a seed? In a unique stop motion workshop, we allowed teachers to determine how to represent their response (literally, or with an abstract interpretation?), decide on a story line (which scenes would they include?), and create their props using clay and paper. It wasn't child’s play, though — they were on a mission to create a stop motion film by the end of our session.

Stop motion is a film making technique which uses a sequence of still images to create the illusion of movement. When the individual images are combined, slight movements in the figures that are photographed create “motion” in the film. This technique was fitting for our project-based learning (PBL) focus at the Big Learning Challenge, since PBL is a dynamic approach that allows for collaboration, problem-solving, and creativity.

Using technology to tell stories
Each team of teachers would need to determine how to represent their response (literally, or with an abstract interpretation?), decide on a story line (which scenes would they include?), and create their props using clay and paper.

Before we started, I could sense that some teachers were nervous about tackling this project a short amount of time. It was a new concept for some, and required a bit of software to accomplish. We used the Stop Motion Studio app, which is free and easy to use. The app allows you to capture photos using your phone, adjust your frames per second (FPS), and easily export your finished product as a movie file. From there, it’s simple to share your work on various platforms.

Once we’d covered the tools we could use, we were ready to begin the film making process. As each group moved on to making their films, they were deeply engaged in their work. To make a short film, they had to create about 6-10 photos for each second of the film. For a one minute film, that means creating 100-150 photos! This detailed work was achieved through a diligent process of creating scenes, moving props, taking pictures, and moving props again, over and over until reaching the desired result.

When their films were finished, we discovered that both teams created two very different stories: one team created a more scientific story about plant growth, while the other took on a social studies perspective, exploring how individuals cultivate values.

What would this project look like in your classroom?
But that was not the end of it. Sure, we had fun making these clips (the outcomes were amazing!), but our larger purpose was to explore how teachers could bring this activity back to their classrooms. Throughout the process of creating a short film, teachers were tasked with being creative, organized problem-solvers. They faced challenges when working with props, developing storylines, and had to exercise patience while learning a new technique. By experiencing these elements for themselves, they were better equipped to anticipate the benefits and challenges of implementing a similar project with their students.

Each teacher set out to imagine how this project could be replicated with their students. They explored ideas like using stop motion to examine narrative structures in ELA classrooms, help ELLs learn adverbs of sequence, and to create an interdisciplinary project for a technology and media class.

How might you implement a stop motion project in your classroom? Check out these ideas to help you get started:

• Determine the purpose: What will the movie be used for — sharing information? A visual report? Part of a larger campaign?
• Decide on the topic: What is a meaningful subject for the movie? A great idea is to provide a question or prompt that students can interpret in different ways. That way, the films created will showcase the unique perspectives that exist in your classroom.
• Plan the sequence: How will students map out their scenes? While I personally like to use storyboards (which I think makes the process more realistic), this can also be done using lists or using index cards.
• Familiarize yourself with technology: Browse the apps available to you — get to know their features, and imagine how your students might use them. The more you know about the app your students will use, the more capacity you’ll have to support your students through the process.

We hope you try a stop motion project in your classroom!

TAGS: JORGE BELTRAN, PD AT TC, PROJECT-BASED LEARNING

By G. FAITH LITTLE

In January, we invited teachers across the city to the third annual Big Learning Challenge: a conference that focuses on the power of project-based learning. Participants previewed innovative workshops, practiced new instructional strategies, and made connections with other teachers by creating original projects, reflecting on their project-making process, and applying it to their own classrooms.
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Each year, teachers glow at the end of the day as they present their work, having engaged with the topic, developed a project vitally connected to their content area, and created everything from scratch. This is fantastic!

​Who wouldn’t have a great time spending a day in their content area of choice, making cool stuff? The Big Learning Challenge design invites teachers further into the field of play, where they consider how the project-making process can become a reality in their classroom. At every stage, from planning to presentation, teachers pause for written reflection:

After experiencing projects aligned to guiding questions and classroom connections, teachers gathered together to share their projects during the final session's gallery walk. Teachers walked away with not only a satisfying experience, but also self-identified next steps to implementing project-based learning in their classrooms.

TAGS: G. FAITH LITTLE, PD AT TC, PROJECT-BASED LEARNING