OUR NEEDS

CHECK FOR
UNDERSTANDING AND
BYOD INTEGRATION

PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
PROJECT

BY ALYSSA GREENWOOD
EDIT 605 SPRING 2016
 Part I Professional Development: Instructional Practices for
Students/Coaching of Teachers- Our need at my school this year
was a check for understanding tool that could be used across
content areas.
The facilitator for this PD was Kevin, who is one of the founders of Formative
(www.goformative.com), so he was extremely knowledgable and helpful. I have
been using this tool since September, and am considered an early adopter when
it comes to technology in my school, but the other teachers who were at the PD
also found Kevin to be very helpful. This PD was useful for me to help coach
teachers on the use of this tool in their instruction. I feel that I am already an
expert at using this tool, and I have already coached two teacher on integrating
Formative into their instruction. I can easily walk them through setting up their
accounts and having their students join, as well as creating assessments, and
sending the assessments to their students. I am also able to coach teachers on
how to use Formative as both a formative assessment tool, a summative
assessment tool, and also a tool that helps to facilitate rich classroom
discussions. I am already identified as the person they will go to for help with this
tool, and this PD helped to clarify some concerns I had. It was a great opportunity
to meet with someone who has such a huge impact on the tool, and he has been
taking my feedback into consideration all year when making some changes.
The structure of the PD was very loose and open, as there were only 5 of us in
attendance, so we basically told Kevin what we wanted to work on and he helped
us. We split up into departments (social studies and science were represented at
the workshop) and started to work on some formative assessments that we could
use with our students right away. I also voiced some concerns I had about the
tool, such as how the students can see some of the answers when I am in the
Assign view and my computer is plugged into the smartboard. Kevin addressed
all questions and concerns immediately and had so much knowledge to back up
his answers.
Since my school participated in iZones SCEC and we were matched with
Formative, we have worked closely with Kevin and Craig, the co-founders since
September. We participated in a research study all year, and at the conclusion of
the year my principal received the memo written by the researcher. Based on this
memo and the positive feedback from my colleague and I, he decided to sign a
contract with Formative. We have now brought on 8 other teachers into my
building to start using the tool. Eventually, we would like to see more and more
teachers using Formative.
My students LOVE this tool. It allows them to answer questions in real time, and I
am able to catch what they are not understanding on the spot. Instead of
reviewing exit tickets or other work and having that impact my next days lesson,
I can use on the spot data to change my lesson and regroup my students.
 PART II- Professional Development for Coaches
My need: To integrate BYOD at my school

Last year, I attended the BYOD Institute and have been trying to implement
BYOD in my classroom, as the pilot BYOD classroom in hopes to expand this in my
school and involve other teachers in BYOD. I have been having difficulty with
being creative and coming up with new ways to integrate BYOD in my classroom.
This PD gave me some new ideas to use and also ideas for coaching other teachers
in implementing BYOD in their classrooms. This PD was online and run by TEQ.
The presenter was extremely knowledgable and well prepared as evident in her
presentation. This PD discussed Cloud based saving and sharing, digital note-
taking, creating content, and mobile assessment. These are all areas of need in
my school, and I feel that I am more prepared to help teachers to integrate this in
their classrooms. My school uses Google Apps for Edu, and I know have a better
way of explaining the benefits of using this with our students to my colleagues. I
also learned more about how Evernote can be used in the classroom to organize
digital notebooks for our students. Another tool that was highlighted in this PD
was piktochart, which is a tool that allows students to create inforgraphics and
digital posters. This tool can be utilized when students are creating content.
Something that really interests me is mobile assessment. As highlighted in Part 1
of this project, I consistently use a mobile assessment tool called Formative. This
PD highlighted Google Forms, which I regularly use, SMART response, Socrative,
and Nearpod. I think that all of these tools can be used with different teachers in
my building. We already have the SMART Response clickers widely available in
my building, so I think that would be a very easy way to get some reluctant
teachers on board. Next I would recommend google forms, which many teachers
are already using, and then I would love to try our Nearpod. It seems really
interesting- it allows you to push a presentation to each students device and
integrate assessment. Socrative seems very similar to Formative, so I am not
sure I would introduce this tool, since we are already partnered with Formative.
Overall, this PD was very informative and moved along at a good pace. It
respected that we are adult learners and it gave enough detail without being
overwhelming.