Alternate Professional Learning

Mastering the Art of Professional Learning 

February 20, 2025  |  Sonia Rodriguez 

“In the digital world, we learn by doing, watching and experiencing” 

-A New Culture of Learning, Thomas and Brown

Crafting a Professional Learning Outline

Is our current professional learning effective?  Currently, our professional learning shows low attendance and engagement, with little impact on student achievement.  If we truly believe in the power of continuous learning, we must start by empowering our academic coaches to lead the way with a fresh approach. The "Go and Show" model offers an alternative that can drive effective and meaningful professional development. Our organizational structures must adapt to support this change.  Take a look at my Call to Action to learn more about professional learning. Below is the alternative professional learning outline.

Purpose:

This professional learning outline for creating a blended learning environment is designed to provide academic coaches with the knowledge, skills, and support they need to successfully learn through blended learning and implement blended learning at their campus.  Key components of the outline include integrating the five principles of effective PD, ensuring ongoing support, promoting active participation, and offering discipline-specific content (Gulamhussein, 2013). The outline also covers fostering collaboration, identifying leaders, understanding audience needs, selecting an instructional design model, setting a timeline, and identifying resources. 

Innovation Focus:

My innovative plan was created to enhance teaching and improve learner engagement through active learning by creating an Online Blended Coaching Strategy.  To implement this, I’ve developed an outline, a growth mindset framework, and a learning manifesto to guide the curriculum’s principles. For the plan to succeed, we must teach academic coaches how to create effective learning environments and implement the math curriculum meaningfully at elementary campuses.   

Goal:

By the 2026-2027 academic year, we will implement a comprehensive Online Blended Coaching Strategy that empowers 100% of academic coaches to engage in “Go and Show” math professional learning, resulting in a 30% increase in student achievement.

Building a Strong Foundation for Blended Learning

According to the Guide to Blended Learning the:

"Key to effective blended learning is a personalized, accessible, learner centered approach" 

Blended learning itself is a skill that has to be learned as there are new communications, new teacher roles, new student roles and new challenges.  For this reason the first year of professional learning will be understanding and setting up an online blended learning environment.

Teaching principles for blended learning

1. Design for open communication and trust

2. Design for critical reflection and discourse

3. Create and sustain a sense of community

4. Support purposeful inquiry

5. Ensure students sustain collaboration

6. Ensure that inquiry moves to resolution

7. Ensure assessment is congruent with intended learning outcomes

Resources

Thank you for your interest in reviewing my professional learning plan.  This is ongoing process and the project is never really done, which makes this even more exciting!  

References