Key Concept 11

11.1 Candidates will be able to apply models of staff development to begin the process of real change in a school.

For my ET691 Internship, I worked alongside Edward Schultheis to create a new kind of professional development at Mt. St. Joseph High School called MSJEdFest. We were tired of PD that didn't ever lead to change and that gave teachers too many prescribed sessions they had to attend. We wanted to follow more of the Edcamp model where participants built the sessions, and working with Google Forms and a lot of motivated educators, we were able to put together a student keynote and nine sessions on a variety of technologies that our colleagues wanted to learn about and explore in the hopes of integrating into their classrooms next year. MSJEdFest was held on July 20, 2018, and it was so successful, based on the many tweets, e-mails, and evaluations we have received, that we would like to follow up on this experience and make it an ongoing exploration of professional development at MSJ. With the educators we already have on board, it is a real possibility that we could create a focused PLC/PLN at MSJ whose mission is to effect real change and growth in a school whose foundation is tradition. Below are some pictures of our promo and the day, and below those is a Wakelet archive of the tweets we were able to send out during the day. It was a packed schedule, so the tweets aren't numerous, but they do highlight the stunning keynote of a senior at our school who kept all educators glued to their seats and had them asking all kinds of excellent questions during the Q&A.