Shifting Gears

December 2018

Let’s talk PL data. We track data on PL participation and implementation because we want to know if what we are doing is working. Are we helping teachers make an impact on student learning?

Through our data tracking, we discovered participation in PL (Innovation Challenges) during December and May was really low. Okay, discouraging. Like 1 teacher participating kind of discouraging.

What is happening? Well. At the end of the semester teachers and students begin wrapping up. Now we were pretty strategic about PL topics during those months to begin with - review games and strategies, keeping students engaged in learning, etc. - but it’s still the end of a semester. Teachers were finding it difficult to commit to a Challenge that might take several weeks or to invest that much time in PL when they were focused on winding down for the semester/year.

How do we keep teachers invested in their own learning at this time of year?

Enter the 12 Days of Innovation. We decided to shift gears in December - to completely flip PL around and redesign how we do PL that month. The 12 Days of Innovation (the word “Innovation” changes each year - we’ve done “Innovation,” “Growth,” “Connections,” and “Ed-venture”) begins the first school day of December and consists of 12 daily mini-tech challenges.

Each day’s challenge takes about 5-10 minutes, is completely collaborative and has tips for classroom application. The whole experience allows teachers to “play” with the tech tools available to them, while also learning how to immediately implement these strategies in their classrooms. These mini-challenges are things they could use in class that same day.

And, in fact, that is exactly what happened many times!

Teachers receive badges for each regular Innovation Challenge they complete. For the 12 Days mini-challenges, the badge teachers receive is a badge that they need to add pieces to. They earned one piece of the badge for each daily task they finished - meaning that for some teachers, the motivation to complete all 12 tasks was that they wanted to complete the entire badge. They also received a small prize for each daily task completed. So while the badge may not be motivating for some, the prizes were the needed motivation for others. Some teachers enjoyed the refreshing fun of it, some liked the faster pace.

With the success of the 12 Days in December, we decided to apply the same concept to May (using an 8 Day model). The result was the same. A boost in participation and excitement about PL.

So, let’s talk PL data again. Remember that really discouraging number (1 teacher participating)? That’s 1.25% of the teachers at our school (imagine really sad, frowny-faced coach). The 12 Days/8 Days model shifted that to 29%, 38%, 49%, 56%, and finally 61% voluntary teacher participation in PL - with actual implementation in classrooms.

That’s exciting stuff.

Click Here to See the 12 Days of Ed-venture

- Ginny