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Podcasts & Pedometers PD!



In a previous post, I wrote about how our district was trying "choice sessions" for our monthly district-wide PD days. One of the choice sessions we offered was a "Podcast & Pedometers" session. 

 I LOVE listening to podcasts, and I think they are a great way to learn and really push yourself to think deeper, and sometimes differently, about topics that interest you. One of the first podcasts that I started listening to regularly was the Google Teacher (Tribe) Podcast with Matt Miller and Kasey Bell. One of the best things about that podcast was that I always learned something new, and sometimes I even learned about an idea that I could try that same day in class. I thought it would be awesome if our teachers could learn more about a topic related to education, and then they could share out their learning with each other. 

 While I have seen many Twitter posts about districts trying out this type of PD, I got most of the ideas for ours from a blog post written by Merideth Akers (click here to read). I created a Google Site page to house all of the information and resources for this session. The video below was embedded at the top of the page in order to be a guide and to walk teachers through the steps of this session.



Podcast Choice Board


 One of the resources on the page was a Podcast Choice Board created by Meredith Akers. I modified it a little bit in order to include different podcasts and episodes. You can click here to make a copy. 

Teachers could choose any podcast or episode they wanted, even if it wasn't on the choice board. The only real requirement was that their choice had to be something that would benefit their students, staff, or the school as a whole.
Learning Reflection

 In order to get PD credit for this session, they had to complete a Learning Reflection that answered the following four questions:
  1. Which podcast did I listen to?
  2. Why did I choose this podcast?
  3. What were my 5 key takeaways?
  4. How will I use what I have learned?

The Learning Reflection was a Google Slide presentation. Below is an example of one of the templates they could choose to use. (I found this design on the Slides Mania website.) You can make a copy by clicking here. 


I also created a video to walk them through the four questions. 



Submitting the Reflection


 The final step was for teachers to submit their learning reflections in a Google Form embedded on the webpage. Below the form, I embedded the spreadsheet generated by the form so that anyone in the session could access the links and read any of the reflections. I thought this was a good way for teachers to learn more about what different people are interested in, and it could also be a jumping-off point for collaboration if several teachers chose to learn about the same topic. You can view the form by clicking here. 

I really enjoyed reading the learning reflections, and it was awesome to learn more about each teacher's passions and challenges in the classroom! Have you ever tried using podcasts in a PD session? I would love to hear about it?
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