Skip to main content

I did a Zoom PD. Here's a debrief.

 What went well:

I used this slide deck for the session. Everyone had edit rights to it so they could move things around in certain slides.

We stuck to a good pace. So many of the sessions I've been in have gone over and I wanted to make sure we ended at the right time. This is going to be extremely important for our kids. If I end a class session right when our time is up, they only have a ten minute break before the next class starts. I can't take any of that, ever! It already may be not enough, but we'll feel it out and listen to feedback from kids.

Using the term "Reminders" instead of "Norms". Norms always felt kinda "off" to me, stuffy, boring. Reminders is more like a heads up. And I liked having the first reminder be "Help each other" and the last one "There'll be time." I'd like to have some version of "Don't Panic!" in my reminders every class.  

We used breakout rooms. For installing the google add on, I knew that some people would already have done it, so they would be well equipped to help others with it. Like "oh yeah you gotta scroll down to see the button" type help. So I gave them 10 minutes to get their whole group up and running and then had them report to me privately the names of anyone who needed additional assistance. I used the timer to automatically close the breakout rooms after the time was up. This allowed us to keep moving. 

Saving as much as possible for teachers to learn later on their own. My main priorities were getting zoom events on their calendars and getting the settings right. Other things like breakout rooms, different views, screen sharing, these are all things you kinda need to practice on your own anyway. Also I got to use my fav gif:

What didn't go as well:

I didn't have enough collaboration built in to the slides. I blame the limited time I had, but I think I maybe could have had a place for them to give feedback at least. Like "put your tips and tricks in here". For example, we went back and forth on a few of the settings, like the "ding" that plays when someone enters or leaves. My advice was to turn it off, but someone pointed out that it'll be useful to hear it so you know when a kid leaves (so you can follow up with them later and see what happened). A slide where she could put that reasoning down would have been nice.

I didn't stress the reminder "Questions go in the chat" enough. A few times people stopped me with questions that were perfectly relevant, but I also had to cut someone off in order to keep moving and I hate doing that! Stressing that Qs go in the chat, and that the Chat Cat 😸 is in charge of stopping me when appropriate, would've helped avoid the situation. 





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hybrid Learning Plans

Reading through some blogs and articles for a focus group on Blended/Hybrid Learning at my school, and I realized I better put down some thoughts before I lose track!  I've noticed a  few common themes so far, here's the first: Involve Students!  This one seemed obvious to me at first, but it's more complicated than it seems. Depending on how you're looking at it, "involving the students" can take on different meanings. My first inclination was to think of this as a design problem (a big part of what I teach is design thinking). So I started looking around IDEO for resources on Human Centered Design and remembered this video on empathy . I think this is a fine starting point, after all we are designing structures and practices for humans, right? This is pretty open ended though, a good jumping off point but in need of some more specific direction. So then I looked to Jesse Stommel  on Twitter because I know he has written a lot about "digital pedagogy...
Post a Comment
Read more

Virtual Learning Day 1-2 Debrief

  What went well: Gots and Needs! On the first day at the end of each class I pushed out a link to a Google Form with two Qs: What is one thing you got from today's meeting? What is one thing you think we'll need to work on? Then I chose some responses and stuck them in a slide and made that the first slide for the next day. This allowed the kids to see that not only was I going to ask them for feedback frequently, but also that I was listening to it! 😄 What needs work: I need to remember to build in talk time for them early in a lesson. I did this in one class but not the other and the difference was clear. They seemed to disengage after like 10 min and it was hard to get them back after that. So I need to remember: they'll need interaction opportunities early and often! General Notes: Tried the "here's the objective, now go and do it" structure in EDD (seniors) and it worked pretty well. Students were still able to rejoin the meeting if they needed me.  ...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Need to Blog Again

I am currently working on my National Board Certification Renewal. That means it's been 10 years since I was first certified, and it also means that I am reflecting on those years in order to write about how I've grown as a teacher. One thing I learned today is that it is really easy to find evidence of my teaching and learning because I used to be good at blogging . 😀 So I am determined to pick up the practice once again for two reasons: It'll make me a better teacher. Just like it did all those years I was doing it regularly, blogging will force me to document what I'm learning and reflect on it in the process.  It'll make it easier to renew ten years from now when I'm doing this again. This reason is secondary, but still important and something I can keep in mind if I'm ever feeling like *not* blogging. So here I go once again. Back into the blogging world after being gone for a while. I remember a thing I used to tell myself all the time was that the bl...
1 comment
Read more