Online Professional Development for Virtual School Instructors Using
New Web ToolsBarbara Treacy, Cathy Cheely, Kirsten Peterson
NACOLOctober 2008
Today’s Session
What’s different about teaching online and what training do online instructors need?
Virtual Virginia’s professional development opportunities for online instructors
EdTech Leaders Online instructor training for Virtual Virginia and others
Discussion, Questions/Answers
What’s Different About Teaching Online
Online curriculum is structured differently Expectation: make use of new interactive tools Social dynamic: different in an online classroom Online discussion facilitation: different from f2f Important to use multiple methods to
communicate Assessment strategies different in an online
classroom Technical challenges may occur
What’s the Same
Need to establish clear expectations Need to understand the content and have good
curriculum Need to provide regular feedback Important to listen to and learn from students Need to meet individual student learning needs
Need to think about how/where to do these things online
What professional development do online instructors need?
Training in content, pedagogy, online teaching skills and technical skills
Ongoing PD in online skills AND in content/pedagogy
Need experience in online environment with good models
Need to pay attention to online voice Importance of ongoing communities of practice Online PD – enables program scale-up
How are online instructors changing teaching?Virtual School Instructors understand how to teach with technology support individualized instruction as well as
collaborative activities increase student engagement and facilitate
deeper discussions with effective questioning are more accessible to their students used to innovative approaches to assessmentVirtual schools are “labs of educational reform”
and virtual teachers are in the forefront!
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Virtual Virginia Professional Development ActivitiesVirtual Virginia Professional Development Activities
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Activity Type When Optional/Mandatory
Description
Teacher Week F2F August Mandatory New teachers - 5 days Returning teachers - 3 days
Facilitator Intro (7 weeks)
Virtual Varies Mandatory Initial training for all instructors
Adv. Facilitator (3 weeks)
Virtual Varies Mandatory - FT Optional - PT
Virtual learning community
Mission Control
Virtual Continuous Mandatory-Tricks Trade Optional - all other boards
Discussion Boards/Learning community
Elluminate Sessions
Virtual Bi-Monthly Optional Variety of topics hosted by admin and team leaders - archived for those who can’t attend live
Faculty Meetings
Virtual Weekly Mandatory Thursdays at 7 pm via Elluminate Archived for those who can’t attend live
Department Meetings
Virtual Monthly Mandatory Hosted by team leaders
AP seminars / workshops
F2F/Virtual Varies Mandatory Week long seminars every 5 years Full day workshop every 2 years
Webinars Virtual Varies Optional Hosted by ETLO, SREB, NACOL
Mission ControlMission Control
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Mission ControlMission Control• Content area - All reference documents, forms and how-to’s
• Tricks of the Trade – A place for colleagues to seek and to offer general instructional support as well as discuss best practices for online learning
• Faculty Bulletin Board - A place to share non-instructional news with your colleagues
• News Articles of Interest - This is a place to post news articles either in print or online that may be of interest to the online learning world
• Department Forums – Science, Social Studies, English/Humanities, World Languages
• Book Forum - Seven Habits discussions
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Professional Development AnnouncementProfessional Development Announcement
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Online Professional Development SessionOnline Professional Development Session
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Online Professional Development AgendaOnline Professional Development Agenda
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Mission ControlMission Control
“I am in these two worlds every day...and I can't help comparing the two...but I love having these articles and being a part of such a group that spends this much time on reading and taking these issues seriously - something like this would not happen in a f2f school, I think. At least not like this. I do not mean to diss f2f organizations by saying this. But it feels pretty revolutionary! Vive la revolution!”
(Adjunct French instructor who also teaches in traditional school)
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Instructing Virtual School Courses Structured, facilitated PD to prepare VS
teachers Seven one-week sessions + online
orientation Key understanding goals:
best practices in online course instruction facilitation skills that foster reflective
discussions leading to deeper learning facility with communication and course
management tools effective strategies for assessing learning online
Timing of Instructor Training
organizations put groups of potential hires through the training and use performance as hiring criteria Pros: increase chance of obtaining quality staff Cons: participants can be distracted by
unknown details about future teaching position newly hired instructors take course prior
to or while teaching their first course Pros: just-in-time preparation, authentic Cons: if during, can be overwhelming
Key Elements: Why does it work? Chance to participate as learners first, in same
environment Modeling of successful online facilitation/instruction Practical activities, each of which can be put to
immediate use in own VS courses welcome message, experimentation, planning template with
rubric Extended dialogue with peers and experienced facilitator Resource and strategy sharing (archived) Ongoing support of ETLO and local learning communities
Examples
Instructing Virtual School Courses Fall 2008 Virtual Virginia (Desire2Learn CMS)
https://d2l.virtualvirginia.org/
How and Why we use New Web Tools
Example Web Tools used in Facilitation
Impromptu Tool Use
Participant Feedback
"I am really going to miss this class and the unique forum it provided for all of the new people. I have never done any kind of staff development that was as helpful and on point as this class - and that is a new experience in the world of education for me. I am an old dog who has been able to learn lots of new tricks thanks to your support and encouragement. Merci beaucoup!"
~Linda Davidson, AP French Teacher, Virtual Virginia