Mobile Professional Development

[KristinL]

In Mobile Series: Canvas Mobile Minions​, I started a discussion asking about professional development. It seems fitting that start a thread here with a larger audience!

Finding ways to increase engagement in professional development is challenging. (As a teacher myself, I understand how attending a professional development session can become a task that easily floats to the bottom of an ever-growing To Do List.) So my question is, do you think a switch from face-to-face, blended, or online professional development to a mobile format would encourage participation?  ...or is it based on the organization of the school and culture where we teach?

My ultimate goal is to shift the thinking in my building from this: "professional learning is something that we have to do"

to this: "professional learning is something that we get to do."

The focus of my master's thesis project was on developing professional development for K-12 teachers who work in a 1:1 setting. I looked at many factors, but I still wonder about engagement. Amazing things happen when people collaborate and learn together, but how can we ignite intrinsic motivation?

Perhaps creating mobile options is a step in the right direction. Not only would teachers become students in the same environment they teach in every day (what a new perspective there!), information and activities can be self-paced and "chunked" so learning is more convenient.

[cgaudreau]

A lot of it is the environment and culture: Regardless of how effective the trainer is, or, bluntly, how much of "See how useful this will be!! It will cut down your workflow by 50%!!" we do, sometimes it floats to the bottom of the To Do list. Let's not even get started with helping them organize or create a To Do list... :smileyconfused:

We are also only given about 45m for PD. As support staff helping utilize digital media in the classroom, this is not enough time for me to make enough of an impact. But is 45m the cutoff for faculty cognitive overload? Maybe they taught a course earlier in the day or have a ton of grading to accomplish.

I think asking participants to come to a session with a goal in mind (maybe a current or future lesson plan) rather than to just sit and absorb, we may get that buy in.

Shameless Plug: My graduate class built an online course - Designing Digital Media for Teaching and Learning​ - which is currently running. There are a lot of questions in the community that address similar concerns, but more geared toward technology use. You may find some good insights there.

[KristinL]

Edutopia featured a neat blog post on November 2, 2015. It seems relevant to this discussion, so I thought I'd share.

http://bit.ly/1NuMtpK

[KristinL]

eSchool News featured this post on November 16, 2015. There are some great ideas here too.

http://bit.ly/1ONvUv7

[Stef_retired]

For those of you who are training people in Canvas generally and on the mobile apps specifically, please check out T2T: The Bias Against Android: #FakeNews or Real Problem? which is coming up in https://community.canvaslms.com/community/ideas/canvaslive?sr=search&searchId=8835bade-62a4-4387-991... this Tuesday, March 28, 2017. RSVP “yes” if you will be there--and if you’re interested, but your schedule doesn’t allow you to attend in real time, RSVP "no" or "maybe" to receive all event updates. Your RSVP ensures that you will receive a notification should the event be cancelled or changed.