Shifting your Professional Development Mindset

Amy Arbogash - Verona Area School District Paul Hermes - Appleton North High School
Director of Technology & Personalized Learning Associate Principal - Curriculum & Instruction
amy.arbogash@verona.k12.wi.us hermespaul@aasd.k12.wi.us
@amyarbogash @PaulHermesEDU
(608) 845-4322 (920) 997-1399 ext. 6522

flippedstaffmeetings.weebly.com

Foundational Beliefs
1. Current Practices are Insufficient
2. Time is Valuable and Limited
3. PD is Not an Event Nor Done by Others
4. PD is an Active, Not Passive Endeavor
5. Transformational Times

Core Elements
1. Active Engagement 6. Teacher Centered
How can you make your PD an active process? Who has the PD been planned for? Are you
How can you increase staff engagement? keeping your “learner” (the teacher) at the
center?
2. Voice
Does your staff have the ability to give you 7. Meaningful Application
feedback about what they need? How do they Is what you are working on have real, immediate,
give you feedback after the PD? and authentic application to your/the staff’s work?
Does it make a difference?
3. Choice
Do you know what your staff wants/needs? What 8. Modeling
choice offerings have you included with your PD? Are you practicing what you preach? How can
How will you going to create those? you serve as an instructional role model of best
practices for your staff?
4. Collaboration
How can staff effectively work together? What 9. Teacher Leadership
types of various grouping options can you utilize? What role have your staff played in the planning
of the PD? What role will they play in the
5. Effective Use of Time facilitation of the PD? What impact are they able
Time is limited - is what you have planned to make on your PD programming?
essential for this time? Can anything be
flipped/done individually at a different time? 10. Personalized
All of your staff are at different points, with
different needs, how are you designing your PD
to account for this?

Examples
 EdCamp- An Edcamp is
a user-generated
conference - commonly
referred to as an
"unconference". Edcamps
are designed to provide
participant-driven
professional development
for K-12 educators. They
are free participant-driven
conferences with a primary
focus on technology and computers.
Prior to the staff meeting, the staff added ideas onto a
Padlet essentially creating the sticky notes needed for
the sessions. Then at the staff meeting, sessions were
selected to fill the available time slots. Staff them
rotated through the sessions that they wanted to
attend.
Edu Fest is a conference
style PD where teachers
teach teachers. Prior to the
staff meeting, the staff fills
out a form offering sessions.
In the past, we have done
sessions on technology,
classroom practices, lesson
planning, etc. Teachers sign
up ahead of Edu Fest so
that presenters can plan
their session. During Edu
Fest, teachers rotate around
to the sessions that they
chose learn about. Offering
different types/formats of
these sessions have allowed staff to engage in the
type of PD best suited for their needs and/or the topic
at hand. It also allows for greater personalization.

Of all of our PD, EduFest consistently is the most

popular and voted the most effective by our staff.

ELEVATE was FedEx Day

created to transform
teaching and learning
through innovative,
personalized,
professional learning
lead by and for our
lead learners. The
goal is to offer high quality, dynamic professional
learning and creation, build district-wide capacity and
community, and leverage district values and initiatives.
ELEVATE includes both a conference style half day
(much like Edu Fest) where all district staff (teachers,
specialists, administration, etc) participate in creating
and presenting sessions for their colleagues. Then, in
the afternoon, staff members have a chance to
collaborate with others to create lesson plans or other
materials for their classroom.
The idea of a
FedEx Day was
created by a
company called
Atlassian. There
they had several
days a year
where
employees could work with anyone they wanted to in
order to create something new and innovative. They
have 24 hours to create and deliver their idea to the
company employees.
At Bay View, we give our staff a FedEx day every year
where they have complete choice of who they want to
work with in order to create something new for their
classroom. This is often run during an early release
day in order to give more time for creation and
collaboration. We encourage our staff to focus on
values like innovation and creativity during these days.
To engage in efforts to create things that they wouldn’t
during the course of their normal work. At the staff
meeting that follows, staff share out what they created
during the FedEx Day to elicit feedback for reflection.

Examples (con’t)
#OneWord (#BVOW) - As a way to kick off the Twitter - To help the staff create an online
school year and to help all of the staff reflect, identify, presence, to establish a Professional Learning
and focus on what we need and want for ourselves Network (PLN), and to actively engage in “sharing the
professionally, we will have all staff identify, formalize, story of schools” with our community, we designed a
and share their #bvow (Bay View One Word) with their PD opportunity where all staff signed up for Twitter.
staff TRIBE to create greater/stronger staff community. Prior to the meeting, staff assessed themselves in their
current use and
For the #bvow, staff took understanding of
time to think, explore, Twitter (Beginner,
and identify what their Intermediate,
‘one word’ will be. Once Advanced), and
they had their word, they then we designed 3
tweeted out their ‘one different leveled PD
word’, using the hashtag learning
- #bvow. opportunities for the
different groups.
Staff then made a sign
or find a way to display While we did not require staff to tweet moving forward,
their ‘one word’, and we did make it a point to integrate Twitter into our PD.
used their iPad and ask someone to take a picture of For example we created a hashtag #bvpl - which we
you holding your ‘one word’ and film a short video used at the end of future PD opportunities as a ‘ticket
(Vine length like - under 10 seconds) of you out the door’ or a reflection activity for staff.
holding/displaying your ‘one word’, say the word and Additionally we encouraged all staff when they
explain why you chose it. tweeted to include that hashtag in their tweets.

At the staff meeting, staff shared their #bvow with
their TRIBE to create greater/stronger staff
community and viewed the compilation video of
everyone’s #bvow. Then throughout the year staff
were reminded/encouraged to keep their #bvow
central to their work, to challenge each other to stay
true to their #bvow, and to engage in an end of the
year reflection on how they did relative to their #bvow.
Finally we have held “Twitter Chat staff meetings” to
get staff experience and comfort with participating in
Twitter chats. These chats replaced traditional staff
meeting conversations and allowed staff to engage in
the chat from any location of their choice (in their
classroom, together in the lounge, at a local
restaurant, at home, etc.)