Roxi Thompson

Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post about my goals for improving how I design PD and how I am trying to work toward these goals in an upcoming PD session I am planning for a group of first-year teachers. My plan is to introduce them to Google Workspace for Education skills using the question and three themes below to guide our conversations and activities.  Guiding Question: How can we use technology to improve teaching and learning? Access Efficiency Collaboration One of their first activities will be to explore this topic using a Multimedia Text Set (MMTS) and then add examples to a collaborative Jamboard (linked to the middle of doc). Here are the links if you would like to view and/or make a copy: Tech Integration - MMTS Tech Integration - Jamboard The purpose of this activity is to: Provide some background knowledge about the topic (Google Workspace tools) Model how this strategy/tool can be used to provide choice and differentiation for learners Give teachers an opportun...

For the upcoming school year, I'm focusing on three areas where I want to improve when designing and leading PD sessions: Shifting from tool-focused to district goal (or pedagogy) focused PD Trying new strategies to differentiate and support individualized progression Providing more time for meaningful collaboration to promote active learning I was recently asked to lead an "Intro to Google" PD for a group of first-year teachers in a few weeks, so this is my first chance to try to work on these goals. This group is a cohort of teachers in our BRIDGE program, which is an alternative teacher preparation program. To try to shift away from being tool-focused, I did the following: Talked with my supervisor to get a better understanding of our district goals Asked our Content Specialists what skills new teachers would need to get started using our district curriculum guides and resources Asked the BRIDGE instructors what skills these teachers would need to be successful in the ...