Professional Learning: A Call to Action

The video presentation of my Professional Learning Call to Action can be found by clicking on the image below:

When sitting down to create my Call to Action Professional Learning video presentation https://youtu.be/6Hk3aJ04R0k, I wanted to accomplish four main objectives:

• Acknowledge the lack-luster impact professional development often has on its audience.
• Present the vision for this professional learning series. This vision includes the WHY of its importance.
• Briefly touch on the five principles of effective professional development.
• Finally, I sought to re-justify the vision, restate the Why, and call my colleagues to action.

I began with hyperbolic reactions educators exhibit at the prospect of enduring a professional development session. I inserted a still of audience members sleeping as an attempt at humor to add some levity to the tone of the presentation.

Next, I tried to relate to my audience of CTE teachers and instructional technologists. I wanted to get them thinking about the power of their own good ideas to better education, and to see the futility of these ideas if they go unexpressed or acted on.

I then turned to the professional learning at hand and explained the necessity for it. I tried to appeal to their Why in the sense of identifying logistical issues we can all relate to, but, all the while, insisting that we overcome those obstacles for the sake of our students’ education. I also took this opportunity to include my navigating within 360-degree photographs of actual CTE relevant job sites, so they would have an idea of the end product this PD will produce.

Finally, I reiterated the challenge before us and why executing this professional learning series will benefit our students—retouching on the Why and following the ebb and flow model articulated by Duarte. I end the presentation with a final summarizing thought about effective professional learning.

References used in the creation of my video presentation and this explanation:

Gulamhussein, A. (2013). Teaching the teachers effective professional development in an era of high stakes accountability. Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/system/files/Professional%20Development.pdf

Daniels, K. (2013). Empowering the teacher technophobe. [Video]. TEDxBurnsvilleED. Retrieved from YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=641&v=puiNcIFJTCU

Duarte, N. (2010, December 10). Nancy Duarte uncovers common structure of the greatest communicators 11/11/2010 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/1nYFpuc2Umk

Sinek, S. (2015, May 5). How to begin your presentation [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/e80BbX05D7Y