We appreciated being treated as professionals.
Working with coworkers. Exploration time. Help from instructor one-on-one. Everything was great.
Getting one-on-one help with specific questions is so much better than just being presented to.
The ability to determine the path/content of the PDA was refreshing, as was time to work and collaborate.
This was so personalized, since I got to choose what all to work on and go at my own pace.
For the fourth time I was privileged to serve as a PDA instructor for Using Technology to Engage and Inspire Your Students this spring; this time as an "advanced" section. The quotes above, which came from our feedback activities through CMS, epitomize what this PDA offers to our staff members. Technology should enable individualization, collaboration, and more time for one-on-one feedback. I am happy to report that this year's offering was a rousing success!
I thoroughly enjoyed my four weeks working with these 18 dedicated individuals. Their hard work and willingness to explore, ask questions, implement, fail, and implement again, led to dozens of success stories for their students. Here are a few examples of such successes...
Formative Assessments Through Kahoot!
Advanced Quiz Techniques and Course Streamlining in CMS
Padlet for Classroom Conversations
Exploring Google Classroom
Google Forms and Flubaroo for Automatically Graded Surveys and Formative Assessments
I am blown away every day with the passion and dedication that I see in our classrooms. Opportunities like these PDA's do not come around as often as I would like, so if you are interested in anything that you have seen here, make sure to sign up for our next PDA! Additionally, if you would like to hear about the details of these, or any other technology related classroom instructional techniques, please contact your district instructional technology coach today!
Sean Mullins | District Instructional Technology Coach
