NEIT14+Open+Space+1H+-+Sunset+1

NEIT14 - OpenSpace Session - Click "edit" to add notes for session.

What are your Best Practices for Training Teachers?

Joy Piedmont - LREI Wendy Semsel - Churchill School Gwen Kaplan - St. David's School Bill Campbell - Dwight-Englewood School Janet O'Connor - Kew-Forest School Rebecca Duvall - Brooklyn Heights Montessori School Kieran Peers - Convent of the Sacred Heart Marina Jackson - Brearly Cassandra Parets - Horace Mann School Luke Dixon - Collegiate School Kim Deveaux - Ethical Culture Fieldston School Erik Hanson - Ethical Culture Fieldston School Talia Neffson - School at Columbia University Julie Miran - Masters School Sarah Dormady - St. Luke's School CT Sharon Owens - Cathedral School Erin Glenn - Friends Seminary Toni Andrews - St. David's School

What's working?

Sarah D. - Group tech time and 1-1 Tech time. Sometimes based on schedule. Sometimes based on discipline. "innovate U" explore technology together. Workshops that teachers can sign up to in advance. 6-8 different ones each quarter. Ask faculty to recommend/facilitate sessions. Just finished first year, positive feedback. Teachers liked flexibility of scheduling/choice. Fluidity of different voices/perspectives. Negative - missing pockets of people who are looking for different things. Insights Workshops - Deeper dives into pedagogy, teaching and learning. For people who think they're not getting as much out of the other workshops. Faculty based. Kind of un-conference model. They facilitate the workshops. Mandatory for teachers to attend 7 workshops over the year. Held during teachers free periods. Attendance is public. All workshops last one period, and are held over various free periods. Cap is at 8 teachers. School's schedule ensures that teachers have at least two free periods a day. 3-4 years ago, school began to require use of tech. Message comes from division head or head of school. 1-1 meets 2x a rotation Flipped model for faculty summer orientation. They do assessments e.g.: setting up an email signature. Voice thread where teachers introduce themselves.

Cassandra has done voluntary with minimal success.

Kim - 5 minute tech tips at regular meetings. Sometimes teachers will ask for more info after the meeting.

Erin - 1:1 iPad program. Week after graduation, stipended faculty workshops to train teachers to use iPad. Workshops varied in length and times. Once the school year gets going, teachers have less and less time. About 50% of faculty attended. Erik also did a stipended workshop program after graduation. Two years, stipended. Now it's not but teachers still come.

Sarah - Would love for workshops to be voluntary at some point. Have "Wired Wednesdays" over the summer break in person and over Google Hangout.

For new teachers coming in after your teachers have strong skills, hiring needs to look for core skills/competencies in new faculty (use of appleTV, dongles, etc.) Core competencies came from division heads and a task force.

Bill - 1:1 program for over 10 years. Week before faculty come back, new faculty are required to have tech orientation. Mostly orientation to "our" systems. During the year, two days a week, last period of the day all students have an activity. MS principal relieved that a bit, and worked it out so that Bill could work with smaller groups of teachers one day a week. Workshop was required of teachers, but it was time that they would have been required to do something else. He gets about 6-9 sessions in a semester. Bill sets the agenda. First session is brainstorming "what do you want to do?" A lot has been "how-to" but there's also been pedagogy. They don't talk about the iPad specifically, the discuss ideas like, "student collaboration while reading." New teacher is spearheading: 7th, 8th grade English and History teachers at lunch will meet once a week to read a novel using Subtext, practicing the skills they'll be teaching.

Teacher turnover? Even if someone leaves, hopefully they are sharing with their colleagues, so the information spreads.

Gwen - other new teachers are really easy to approach. New teachers don't have a lot of preconceived notions about the school. Then those people go out and "infect" their departments. Some in-service time has been dedicated to looking at tech and curriculum. In the fall some of the in-service time has been focused on tech, spring is focused on reversioning their curriculum with tech. Focuses follow up on most enthusiastic teachers. Some of the senior members of the faculty have said they wanted handouts to take away with them.

Kieran - CSH has a ticket system that links to a FAQ. Multiple places where people can access the same information. Wiki, Google Drive, FAQ. They don't have a single point of reference because it is better for teachers.

Cassandra - Started a blog this year. She has more of the advanced tech users looking at the blog. Has a Haiku class that all faculty are enrolled in (whether they want to or not). She emails the link to faculty with a brief description of the blog post. New blog posts every one to two weeks.

Sarah D. uses WH classes and enrolls the teachers. She extensively uses Topics. Also have a blog that teachers contribute to, in order to celebrate great faculty work. She has a topics post with links to other teachers' great topics posts.

How do we make allies of the most reluctant faculty? - Eat lunch with them, listen to what their doing. - Bring them candy. - Research into their curriculum. Talk about what they're doing, get to know what they're teaching, then you can bring tech into the conversation. - Sit in on team meetings. - There will always be people you can't reach, you just sort of let it go and you focus on celebrating the successes. Figure out how you can model them, reach out, if you don't get positive feedback, you can say, "there are issues here I can't change." - Some people take longer, and you have to let them. - Meet teachers in public spaces so others see you working and collaborating. - Proximity is also key. In the last two or three years, Bill tried to find spaces in various faculty offices, where he could work. - Building the relationships is vital. - As 6th grade starts iPad program, Bill will be on the 6th grade floor. - Important to be a good listener.

All faculty have to attend a certain number of sessions(7) during teachers' free period. Try to host each period and 6-8 courses varied

What do they cover in one period? 2 periods a day when each person is free Important to come from Division Heads. 1:1 and also group sessions Wired Weds. through Google hangout What happens with hiring Competencies moving forward as they go to hire from Divisions Heads and DEPT Heads

1:1 Ipad rollout; variety of workshops with a stipend could go up to 5 days right after school Once school year gets going interest dies off a bit. Well over 50%
 * Friends**

New push rethinking about how technology impacts pedagogy and higher issues

Are new teachers leaving more?

Incorporating Noodletool and databases Focus follow up on those we seem more engaged Wanted handouts
 * St. David's**

Do things in more public areas

Proximity is important

- "You are aware that if you don't 'bother' me, I don't have a job."