Session One: March 7, 2014

Focus Group Phase

To establish the mood that these sessions were not your typical professional development, three SMART Boards were set up and ready to go. The evening began with a Focus Group discussion over dinner. The participants were eager to begin their learning and were fully engaged during the Friday evening session.

During the focus group phase of the evening, participants shared stories and thoughts on the following topics:

• What motivated you to participate in these SMART Board workshops? Have you experienced any barriers or problems when using a SMART Board in your classroom?

• What positive and negative professional development experiences have you had during the course of your career so far?

• Have you heard of action research before? What do you know about action research? Have you had previous experience with action research? If so, please describe your experiences.

• What are you hoping to learn through the four workshop sessions?

When sharing experiences of negative and positive professional development, the participants were hesitant to speak. Two of the six participants shared. Jonas admitted that he didn’t have a “large pool to draw from” as he was a relatively new teacher. Danielle’s quote was coded under the parent node ‘Qualities of Professional Development’ and the child node ‘Time for Practice’. The following quotation by Danielle described her feelings towards past professional development:

I always think it is nice to go when you are expecting something that you can use in the following day or week in your classroom or something that tweaks the way you look at something. I think it is really disappointing when you come expecting that and then you sit there the whole time as somebody just drones on and on and on. You go, "okay, you are an educator and you are not following any of the teaching principles because you have lost your whole audience.”

Although several of the teachers knew one another, it seemed fairly arduous to tease information out of the participants. It was difficult for me to surmise if this hesitancy was due to shyness or to the depletion of energy on a Friday evening after a long week of teaching.

Session One concluded with a Focus Group discussion to set personal learning goals, to generate ideas for further topics for follow-up sessions and to set a date for Session Two.

Workshop Phase

Although nine participants expressed an interest in attending the series of SMART Board sessions, due to medical complications, one was unable to attend the first session. In addition, one participant had prior commitments and was unable to attend. However, she did receive all of the workshop handouts from Session One and set a Personal Learning Goal the following week.

As Presenter, I demonstrated specific skills on the SMART Board and then paused to allow time for participants to “digest” the information and to practice collaboratively. The skills presented in Session One included the following:

• SMART Board Basic Tools • Online Resources

• Math tools within the Gallery Essentials Component of the SMART Software

During the collaborative practice time, the activities were structured with clear instructions. For example, one practice activity was to create a five-page sequence using math tools he or she might use in the classroom. These five-page “lessons” were then presented to the collective group.

Setting Personal Learning Goals

Towards the end of the first evening, as Coach, I encouraged participants to write down a personal learning goal. The use of self-reflection through journaling or the use of a tracking sheet was explained as a helpful tool to track one’s learning goals and to reflect on one’s progress. As Coach, I then sent friendly e-mail notes throughout the coming month to remind participants of their own goals. The goals of all participants can be found in Table 4.1. However, to present an example of the potential growth in learning as evidenced in the Personal Learning Goals, I will track the goals of one participant in Figures 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3.

As Presenter, I verbalized my own goal to the group for Session Two in the following quotation:

For the following session, I am open to whatever you want to learn. But, I thought maybe one sequential outline would be to move from subject to subject. So, we could then focus on Language Arts and then explore some tricks and tools of the SMART board. The following sessions, we will carry on from that. My goal for the very end is that you would be able to take any lesson that you currently use with a white board, chalkboard or an overhead and then adapt it for the SMART board. And, then be able to go beyond that so you can take any lesson and make it more engaging and interactive. So, my students are doing the learning and I am no longer standing at the front teaching. I want the kids to be involved in the learning.

Figure 3.1 Example of Sarah’s goal card