Design

Planning and Implementation

The goal of this project is to design a peer-driven professional development program to address perceived needs. Based on the results of a survey, participants can opt in and the program will be designed through consensus.

The survey questions ask teachers to identify needs within their own practice, our school, and/or district-wide as well as what kind of professional development (if any) they might be interested in. Though survey participation was lower than I would have liked (11 out of 26 teachers and specialists surveyed responded, one paraprofessional responded), 8 of the 12 respondents indicated that they would be interested in participating in peer-driven professional development.

The process of surveying respondents already begins to address my development in the Adult Learning and Group Processes competencies. By surveying respondents, I have learned about their perceived needs as educators and how they would like to learn. Though I will continue to gather information about participants as we form our collaboration group, this first step has helped me to identify where the focus for these adult learners will be. In addition, respondents indicated their interest in three different types of peer-driven professional development. Because most indicated an interest in Integrated Unit Design, this will be the focus of our professional development. Through these two questions, we have begun to form a group of adult learners.

When we come together as a group, we will Explore and Challenge Inequity by exploring our own cultural backgrounds and biases through reading, discussions and listening. I will Facilitate Collaborative Relationships by guiding the group in developing effective collaboration practices and identifying personal differences that could create challenges.

Leveraging Strengths and Addressing the Needs of Diverse Stakeholders for Collaborative Learning

The Curriculum Department in Bozeman School District has recently completed a curriculum map for each grade level. These curriculum maps include the units for reading, writing, math, science and social studies aligned with a pacing guide for the year. The curriculum maps were developed as a guide for teachers and the order of the units was designed in such a way to allow for cross-content integration.

Though the curriculum maps are useful for pacing, they do not include explicit lessons or resources to help with cross-content integration. By leading a collaborative group to develop integrated units aligned with the curriculum maps, I will help build on the work that the curriculum department has done and facilitate learning and sharing across grade-levels. Ideally, the units that we create will be designed in such a way that they can be shared across the district and create greater equity between schools and among teachers.

Collaboration, Obstacles and Measures of Sucess

The structure of this group will be guided by the needs and preferences of participants but will include collaboration, questioning, data and reflection. My hope is that participants will discuss needs and brainstorm ideas for integrated units. As we begin to develop our units, we will gather formative assessment data to measure student achievement, observational data regarding engagement, and qualitative data around the effectiveness of lessons in achieving learning goals. We will periodically meet to reflect on our successes and changes that could be made.

The main potential obstacles that I can anticipate are regarding time, the size of the task and idealogical differences. Finding a time to meet may be difficult due to the demands of being a classroom teacher. I would address this obstacle by surveying participants for the best times, taking detailed notes, or perhaps recording meetings if participants can't attend. We will also use shared documents to allow for asynchronous collaboration. Though the overall goal of this project would be to develop integrated units for the entire year, we will begin by focusing on designing just one unit to make the task more manageable. Finally, as idealogical differences arise, I hope to guide the group in approaching differences with curiosity and inquiry so that participants can learn from one another.

The measures of success would be positive feedback from participants and the development of integrated units. Throughout our work together and upon completion, I will informally solicit feedback from participants. Their positive feedback and confidence in their ability to design and implement integrated units would be evidence of success.