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)

Virtual VirginiaVirtual VirginiaVirtual VirginiaVirtual Virginia

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

Thank you!

Barbara Treacy btreacy@edc.org

Cathy CheelyCathy.Cheely@doe.virginia.gov

Kirsten Petersonkpeterson@edc.org