 Welcome everyone, so glad you're taking time out of your busy day to join us. We are here for you, all of our tech integrationists out there or any of you in the role supporting teachers as they get going in any form of technology. This session is focusing on creating a hands-on PD Lab. I'm Angela from the CSaw team and again, we're just thrilled to have you here. I was so excited when I read a post written by our host today, Faith. Just this amazing idea of really rethinking PD. So just know because you have registered for this session, you are going to get these slides sent to you and a copy of the recording as well. If you are watching via the recording, thanks so much for being here too. We hope you join us next time. And speaking of next time, just so you know, mark your calendars because every month, if we can go to the next slide, every single month we actually host this session specifically for tech integrationists on a topic that we'll hopefully interest you and help you in your position. So add it to your calendar. We meet at the same time each month. So stay tuned as we look forward to our next session. The next thing I wanna remind you about as well is on Facebook, we just started a group for technology integrationists. And you don't have to be using CSaw to join this group. This is really just a space to have connections with like-minded or similar position educators. So you might be in a similar role and find this space inspiring or sharing and connecting. So make sure you join there as well. Now I have the amazing pleasure to introduce our host today. This is Faith Plunkett. Faith was named a PBS digital innovator in 2014. For the past four years, she taught computer science and video game design to elementary students. She now serves as an instructional technology coach. She's passionate about STEM and helping students create using technology and other makerspace materials. She's a huge Disney fan and serves as an ed-magineer in the EdCamp Magic Planning Team. And of course, she's very passionate about PD. So welcome Faith. We're super excited to have you here with us today. Thank you guys for allowing me to be here. I'm very excited to show you some of the things that we've been doing this school year. Let me pull up my camera. Hey y'all. So today I'm gonna talk to you about creating a hands-on PD lab. So this all started out with an idea. And one of the big things as tech coaches is we want our students to not only have an idea, but take the idea and run with it and go through all the steps of the design thinking process. So I'm gonna share how I did that to spark some really cool professional development opportunities and spaces to my teachers. So this all started several years ago. As Angela mentioned, I taught computer science and video game design in a school district. This was a fabulous position. I loved it. But one of the hardest things was I was not provided with adequate PD in order to grow my students as much as I wanted to. And a lot of that was because my district that I was in was having some financial issues. So professional development for teachers who weren't main classroom teachers was hard to come by, but also because computer science professional development wasn't very widely available at the time. So I really got to thinking about professional development and how as technology integrationists or technology coaches, that's our main focus. And we want our students to be excited, but we want our teachers to be excited about professional development as well. So I was sitting in an Ed third meeting and we were talking about learning spaces for students. And then it hit me. We focused so much time talking about learning spaces for students, but what about learning spaces for teachers? When we're sitting here just in sit and get and we're just in a boring environment and we're all doing the same thing that's not differentiated like we're expected to do for our students. So I thought, how cool would it be if we created a learning space for a teacher? And we had maker spaces and we had environment to get teachers excited about professional development to get them excited about STEM, about coding, about computer science, about all of that. And then to bring it back into the, bring that same excitement back into the classroom. So I had my idea, but I was trying to figure out how on earth I was going to make that happen. So I started to do a little research and the district I was in at the time was Connected with Digital Promise, which is an organization that focuses on innovation. So I started talking to different people that were involved in that organization. And I found a lab that was similar to what I wanted to create in North Carolina. And I talked to the director there, but his was mainly focused on purchasing products for the lab and not really focused on professional development. So I started to do some research and I became really passionate about professional development out of my frustration of not receiving professional development. So I launched a survey on Twitter and I said, hey, I'm just launching this survey. I would love for you to take it. I launched it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, every social media channel that I had. And I said, hey, I'm working on a personal project involving professional development. Do you mind taking two minutes to fill out my PD survey? I'm on a mission to change PD in education. So I launched this survey and basically the survey has like four or five questions that says, would PD be a factor on whether or not you wanted to return to school, the school district next year? What gets you excited about PD? If you could create a dream day of PD, what would it look like and stuff like that? So as of earlier in May, earlier this week, I've had 3,116 educators complete the survey, which is awesome because the feedback has been phenomenal and it's just showing me and so showing so many other people that, hey, the way that we do PD, the way that most of our districts do PD now needs to change. We're not really benefiting from it. And so I took all the research, that was January of last year, January, 2018. I took all the research and I decided to talk to my superintendent at the time. And I said, hey, we're expected to be innovative. We're expected to learn and grow our students, yet we're not provided with the professional development needed to do that. A lot of our teachers are not exposed to innovation. They're not exposed to STEM, they're not exposed to computer science, yet we're expected to teach it. What do we need to do to fix it? So that was the problem from the design thinking process that I was trying to solve. So we chatted back and forth, but financially it just wasn't something that could happen. So long story short, the superintendent that I was working with on this project, he got a job offer for another school district. And at the same time, I got a job offer for another school district, a neighboring school district. Through the interview, I basically told them, I said, hey, I'm working on this project with this school district. I'm very passionate about it. I've spent a lot of time doing research. You know, what can we do to make this happen? And they were supportive from the get-go, which was amazing. But one of the biggest issues, and I know this is a nationwide issue, not just an issue in Alabama, is on teacher retention. And one of my survey questions said, would lack of professional development offered by your district be a factor on returning the next school year? I had 46.6% say yes. That's a huge number. That's close to 1,500 teachers that say lack of professional development is a factor on returning the next school year. And when we're in a teacher retention crisis like we are in Alabama, where there are so many teaching spots open and they're having to beg for people to come teach and I know it's not just in Alabama, you know, maybe we need to start looking at some of the reasons why there is a teacher retention. The quality of professional development is easy to fix. But it wasn't just about the numbers that got me fired up. It was about the stories that teachers wrote me, the stories that people sent me on Twitter. They messaged me or they emailed me or they contacted me in some way. And they said, hey, I'm not receiving any kind of professional development in my district. I can't grow. I feel like I'm stuck. I need help. I need out. Different stories like that. And I was in a similar position and I just needed a place to grow. And so I decided, hey, I'm gonna do what I can to change PD and to change different things so that our teachers feel like that they're being fed what they need and expose them to innovative tools. You know, when our students are constantly using pencil and paper that's not being innovative and that's not holding their engagement among other things. So like I said, I moved into a neighboring school district. I immediately had 100% support from the superintendent and from the director of technology. It really was a whole new world for me because they were very supportive of the professional development idea and they're of teachers all being supported no matter what way they can be. Hey, you have a needs met. Let's see what we can do to meet the need. I'm not only with teachers but with students as well. So I was so excited after doing six months of research I was so excited that I was gonna see my idea come to life. It was a dream come true. I was so excited, I couldn't hide it. I was pumped. So we started building the Spark Lab. My district opened up two new high schools, moved two middle schools and moved an elementary school over this summer. It was a very busy summer. So in one of the case that was not going to be used and that's where we created the Spark Lab. And you may be saying, well, where did the Spark Lab come from? Well, as there goes through the five senses and talks of your imagination. So I knew that my goal, my goal as a technology coach is to see the same spark in the teacher's eyes as the classroom teachers see in the students' eyes. I want them to be excited. I want them to get one little spark and then take the excitement and run back to the classroom with it. So like I said before, teachers deserve cool spaces and cool stuff too. So we built the lab. We painted all kinds of funky colors. You'll see some pictures later on. I blew up huge pictures on our poster printer of dash and dot robots, Bebots, micro bits. Those are hanging on the walls. I took lights and wire from Lowe's and made words. One word says code, one word says make and another word has a light bulb on it. Have a huge pigment poster in here. I also have a lending library of STEM tools and we were fortunate enough. I used to work for a vendor. So I'm very familiar with several vendors and I'm friends with them and they see some of the work that I've done in the past. So when I reached out to them and I said, hey, this is what I'm doing. Would you be interested in donating? Because basically I said, hey, we're gonna be using these five blocks of kits. Would you be interested in donating them so that teachers can experience them and then they'll be able to purchase them. So it's a win-win for vendors too because when the vendors know that you're gonna do professional development, you're gonna show the teachers how to use the materials and when teachers see the materials and they feel supported using the materials, they're gonna wanna buy the materials. So I had close to $5,000 donated including a 3D printer from Dremel, lots of Wonder Workshop materials, lots of Bebots materials, Autobots, all kinds of different things. I also applied for a lot of grants. We have a foundation here called the Decatur City Schools Foundation and they work really hard to support the teachers. So they came across several STEM grants and to this date, we have close to $100,000 in grants that have been donated for lending libraries. So for example, we just got a grant for $15,000 from the Daniel Foundation and I bought classroom sets of different things. So I bought a classroom set of LEGO, the Weedies, 2.0s. I bought a classroom set of Merge Cubes, a classroom set of Ozobots, a classroom set of Puzzlets that go with the Dash or robots and different things so that teachers can check them out, all deliver them. They can come to PD and the Spark Lab but they'll also have the materials to take back into their classroom whenever they feel like they need them. So that's also in here. So we have a ton of different stuff available for teachers which has also been a huge win-win for them as well. But it's not really about the space or about the stuff. The whole purpose of me creating this was so that teachers would have access to quality PD and they would feel like that their needs were being met. So it wasn't just about sitting and getting. I do a lot of gamified sessions. So we do like a lot of little breakout rooms but I offer three main types of PD. I offer weekly sessions. I have a Tech Tuesday every Tuesday. We're not doing them for the month of May because it's the end of the school year. We have 11 days of school left. I also have faculty meetings. So principals will schedule full faculty meetings. The whole entire faculty will come or we'll do some different activities. And then I also have open lab times. So those are where I just sit in here for two hours and I open up the lab and teachers can come in and they can make and they can create and they can explore and they can come ask questions. They can build. I have all kinds of buildable materials in the spark lab. So hey, you know what? They might wanna come play with cardboard and glue things together after a long day. And you know what? Teachers come in here and do that. I have a comfortable sofa in here. I have a curing machine. So and oftentimes I bring cookies. So they're welcome to come in at any time and it's a place for them to explore but it's also a place for them to feel like boarded as well. So I do all those types of sessions. I don't really have teachers sign up because I don't want them at the last minute to feel like, oh, I didn't sign up for this PD. I can't go. I facilitate most of the PD. We have one other tech coach and we have about, we have 12 elementary school in our district. So we have about 600 elementary teachers and all of them at some point this school year have been in the lab. So that's exciting. Most of them have been more than once but I think I've gotten everybody in here at some point in time, including the collaborative teachers, music teachers, art teachers, special ed teachers, guidance counselors, even office staff, some of them will come because they wanna see the excitement as well. So it's very exciting. I mentioned before, I was fully supported by our superintendent, his name is Dr. Michael Douglas and he decided to introduce the Spark Lab. He would invite the entire school board and everybody who came to the school board meeting to the Spark Lab and they would hold the meeting there. So we had a miniature PD session at the very beginning with the school board members and it was very exciting because oftentimes they're not in the classrooms to see everything that's happening and for them to be exposed to the kind of tools that we're pushing out to our teachers was awesome because they were able to experience it firsthand. So that's how we introduced the Spark Lab. So here's kind of a tour of the Spark Lab. As I mentioned, the walls were brightly colored. I have this picture is of the major space. It was a little messy at the time but we had set up a breakout game when we were doing it with the board members so you can see some of the kinds of different stations that were around. There was a merge cube. We had them play the piano using makey makies and bananas and the osmos and they had to build something in the maker space. So this is one of the pictures. And as you can see, we have, you can see the giant micro bit but we've just been exploring all kinds of tech tools. Most of the teachers here had never been exposed to a lot of technology. This is the first year that our teachers have had one-to-one technology in fourth through 12th grade. So it's been an adventure. I feel like I've thrown a lot at them this year but they have been troopers and we've all grown together and learned together. So it's been exciting. The state of Alabama has released a new set of digital literacy standards next year because our governor is very passionate about computer science and wants it in every classroom. So a lot of the training that I have been doing is getting our teachers prepared for that next year. So when teachers come for full faculty meetings, I'll cover certain standards and they'll do some kind of miniature activity based on those standards. You can see the teachers in this slide, they were using the bebot to create a sequence of events and they were counting by tens. And then another teacher was utilizing an unplugged coding activity to write algorithms. So we do all kinds of stuff. We play with virtual reality, augmented reality, the merge cubes. My goal is to expose them to as many tools as possible so that they find something they're passionate about and they kind of take it and run with it. So the design thinking process, like I said, was kind of the motor for this. And it never stops. I'm always thinking of ways I can improve. So different things that I have learned, different challenges that we're currently facing is space. The room was the size of a normal classroom, which is awesome. It's a great space, but we're kind of running out of space, especially since we have so many awesome materials in here for our teachers to check out. So we're currently hunting for a bigger location. I'm hoping we'll find and narrow something down within the next week or two so that we'll be able to move into it over the summer. But lack of space is a great problem to have. I personally think that means that your space is being utilized. And also another one of our struggles is the time schedule for PD. Elementary schools get out at 2.45, our middle schools get out at 3.30. I'm the technology coach for the elementary and two out of three of our middle schools. So it's hard for us to have PD sessions on a common time because you don't want the elementary teachers to wait so long after school gets out for them to receive PD. But you also, it's hard when you're starting PD before the middle school gets out. So it's been a challenge trying to figure out time for both parties to have PD. But we're working on it. So those are my two biggest challenges that I faced. Also, trying to get everybody in the lab, some principals are more willing to bring their teachers in here than others. So it's hard, but I've been constantly, especially since I'm new to the district, but I've been constantly working hard to build those relationships. So they'll say, hey, this is the purpose of this. This isn't just a toy. This is a tool that can be utilized in instruction. And here's how it can be utilized to help your students. So those have been kind of my bigger challenges. But the biggest thing is the Spark Lab is not a one-stop shop. And instruction and ideas don't end in the lab. The Spark Lab is just simply where they begin. And I want teachers to come in here and to get ideas and to take them back to their classroom. But it's also my job as a technology coach to follow up with effective modeling in the classroom setting. So oftentimes I do PD on Tuesdays in the lab. Sometimes I'll do all-day PDs, sometimes half-days. And then I always have my technology Tuesdays and the afternoons. But I try to keep my schedule open on Wednesdays so that when the teachers that come on Tuesdays leave, a lot of them will say, oh, can you come to my classroom and do this with me tomorrow? And that way I can walk alongside them in their classroom after they've experienced something in the Spark Lab that they wanna replicate. So I'm doing it alongside with them. So that's been great as well. That's been a great strategy to have because I never wanted teacher to leave here feeling that they're not supportive and or not supported and that I won't be able to help them. So I try to keep my Wednesdays free so that I can pop in with them as soon as, because once you have an idea that you're so excited about you wanna do it as quickly as possible. And I don't want that excitement to fade. So being able to go alongside with them on Wednesdays has been awesome. Not every teacher will ask for it, but a lot of them will. And so it's been awesome to kind of walk alongside with them. So that's the Spark Lab in a nutshell. It's been a great project. This year I've been a part of a program through our state called Alabama Leaders of Educational Technology, ALET. And it's been a technology coaching program. So I've been mentored by a technology coach which has been awesome because this is my first year of serve as a technology coach. And I've learned so much from that whole entire process. But one thing that I've had to work on was creating a passion project. So the Spark Lab has been my passion project. And a lot of people have asked about data and how are you backing this project up with data? Well, right now we don't have numbers for it, but I can tell you, because this just launched in November, but I can tell you that our teachers are excited. They're coming to professional development willingly and they're taking what they're learning back into their classroom. And I love it when I pop into a school to do something and I walk in the hallways and I see the teachers who may have started out the year using pencil and paper are now using robots to teach math and are using the b-bots to teach literacy. And it just makes me so happy because that's exciting for a technology coach to know that you helped inspire them to kind of change their practices, some of their instructional practices. So don't focus too much on the space or the stuff that's in it, but focus on changing the PD and getting teachers excited and walking alongside them after they leave. So do you guys have any questions? Thanks, Faith. I'm sure they have all sorts of questions, but I am gonna give them some time here for those of you that are live to actually typing your questions and I will read them to you, but I've been formulating my own questions throughout. So in an effort to give them time to type in questions, I'm gonna get started. So I guess I think one of the questions that I have and some people might be thinking, like, well, what if we don't have all of, this amazing stuff that you have, right? And you talked in detail about kind of how you reached out, how you got grants and all that. But if we remove all of those materials, I wanna just focus first on just the bigger idea of rethinking how PD has typically happened. So if you could give some advice, Faith, in terms of, maybe they don't have all these materials, maybe they don't have all the stuff that you have gotten, where could someone start with this type of framework? What would your suggestion be there? I think the biggest thing would be survey your teachers. Ask them if you're meeting their professional development needs and what you can do to change. One of the biggest things I was concerned about was, I was, you know, just wouldn't accept the idea, but I tried to include them as I formulated my professional development sessions as much as possible. So then when they saw the list come out and they had asked for a session specifically on Bebots and they saw that, they were like, oh, she's listening to me. And sometimes, you know, that's all it takes is just, you know, providing the professional development that you know they need. And then, you know, talk to your district leaders and say, hey, I have this idea. I wanna create a space for just for our teachers, one that's not utilized by students. And I do have students come in here for field trips and a few other things, but just create a space, even take a blank room and, you know, paint it bright, funky colors. That doesn't cost a lot. And just start with the space and say, hey, this is gonna be our space for professional development. When teachers have a room that they know is theirs, they get super excited when they know it's being built for them. And then start asking around for donations. You know, go to Lowe's and say, hey, I'm gonna try to create this PD lab. It's National Teacher Appreciation Week. A lot of companies are excited for teachers right now. Like, now's the time to go to Lowe's and now's the time to go to Home Depot and say, hey, I wanna create this. What can you do to help me? You know? Love it. Even, we love your energy faith. It's so great. I love it. Tricia has a question coming in. So she has a couple of questions very related to kind of some more specifics regarding things like how many teachers come to your PD sessions on average? And do they sign up ahead of time or is it on a drop in basis? So I have anywhere between one and 45 teachers come to PDs. Especially my full faculty meetings all have maybe 25 to 45 teachers come at once. So in these sessions, I might have one teacher come. I might have five. I might have 10. I never know. I don't make the teacher sign up because I don't want them to feel pressured if they've changed their mind in the last second and wanna come and that way they don't have the excuse of, oh, I didn't sign up. I couldn't come. Well, I want them to walk in and be excited about PD. So come if they want to. And then the open lab times, I might have five teachers come in here at a time. I might have one. My open lab times, especially the whole purpose of that is to provide them space and support if they need it. So I might have a few drop in for five minutes. Some, you know, might stay the whole two hours because they're busy, you know, gluing and cutting cardboard and doing all kinds of fun stuff. So. Great. So that's kind of what I've done. That's helpful. Jamie is wondering, you mentioned grants at the beginning of your training. Did you get teachers to help you write the grants for ownership in it? Just curious, or did you do it all on your own with the other technology specialists? A few of them were written by the school's foundation. So what they did was they, and they actually wrote the biggest, the two biggest grants they actually wrote at the spring of last year. So it was before I was even hired. So I'm not 100% sure how they came up with some of what they came up with. But all the companies that have given us money have been pretty flexible with what we spend it on. So I've had a lot of input on that. When we got our first batch of materials, because our teachers had not been exposed to anything related to robotics, I kind of gave them a sampling of stuff. And then this last batch of materials that we had, the $15,000 grant, I sent out a survey to the teachers and I said, what would you like more of in your classroom? If you could have access to anything else, what would it be? So that they had input as well. And most of them, we purchased most of everything that was on the list, which was great. So now they're super excited. We're gonna have a webinar next week, actually, working with a fifth grade class and we're gonna unveil all the products that we bought. And the fifth grade kids are gonna show how to use them. So I'm super pumped to see the teachers reactions because it all came in like last week and today. So it's very exciting. But yeah, we try to involve the teachers as much as possible now that they've been exposed to different things. Hey, what's working in your classroom? What's not? What would you like more of? That kind of thing. Great, I have another question. We're blank from questions for now. So if you are here live and you do have questions, feel free to type them into the question box and we will ask while we are here. But here's my next question. Can you talk a little bit more about how you communicate what is available to teachers? Do you send out, like, this is, you know, this week in, you know, the Spark Lab, we are doing X, Y, and Z at this time or this is the calendar of the month. Can you talk through that process a little bit? Yes, so I send out a newsletter every Monday. I call it the Minute of Tech Monday and it usually has four bullet points of things, either happening in the district or different technology things they should know or different things I've found. And then there's also a PD session, a PD document that's attached to the bottom that has all the PD sessions in it. I also have a website that I utilize at Google site that is for the teachers in our district that has information about the Spark Lab. It has a calendar on there. It has curriculum information. It has how-to guides on there to utilize the stuff. It has all kinds of different things on the website. So they have access to that as well. And then once every two weeks, I send out an email to the principals and I say, hey, these are the sessions I have coming up. Please forward it to your teachers. So they'll send it out as well. Most of them will, to show what's happening in the Spark Lab. And I'm in and out of, I'm in 14 schools, but I try to get in and out of them and as much as possible, at least once a week. Sometimes it's once every other week, sometimes once every two weeks. But I try to show consistent, I show up consistently in the school so that when the teachers see me, they say, oh, what's going on in the Spark Lab? Or, hey, when can you show me how to do this? Or when's this session going to be, can you do a session on this? So building those relationships with the teachers and actually being present in the classrooms and in the schools helps with that as well. Great. So we have a lot of people asking, are you willing to share your website or any Google folder you have of your resources? Maybe putting them in this slide deck after we go, if you're willing to share there. Otherwise, you'll probably have a lot of people emailing you personally, babe. So if you're willing to share those resources. Yeah, I can share some resources. I do not think I can share the whole website because it is attached to our internet, which is, you have to log in through our Kader City Schools email. But yeah, feel free, anything you need, just feel free to reach out to me and I'd be glad to share different things. Emily is wondering besides of course, the gift of new learning, right? Which is always happening in PD. Is there any way that you incentivize your PD in any other way, like clock hours or extra pay? What do you do in your district? They get professional development hours and I also try to give away things. So when I talk to vendors, I'm like, hey, what can I give away? And anytime I go to a conference, I come home with a bunch of stuff that I try to give away to teachers as well. So last year when I came home from ISD, I know Joe came home with like 70 pounds of stuff. And anything, and teachers love it all, like even if it's a pen or a bookmark. So I try to have like, I have a huge amount of stuff, I'm running low, but I'm hoping to restock up the stack of stuff. I've also gotten friends to donate e-books, you know, their copies of their books virtually so I can send out to teachers and they get their professional development hours. I got, I won like 40 merge cubes. So I try to put that in my email with the professional development sessions. Hey, if you come to this session, you're gonna get a free merge cube. So that'll draw them in too. So long story short, incentives are good. Incentives are good, little goodies, no matter how tiny. Trisha is wondering, yeah. Trisha is wondering, Faith, if you could talk a little bit about any tips that you have for those teachers as she terms that are comfortably complacent or maybe need a little extra support to feel encouraged or inspired to want to jump into your PD lab or anything else related to PD. Do you have any thoughts there of any strategies that you feel have been really, have worked well or maybe just format alone? Yeah, so this year was a very interesting year for me because I moved, I moved to a new district. So I was basically starting fresh with everybody. And I knew people in the district because it was a district that I grew up in. So a lot of people were excited, but then you had the people that were not excited and were not excited about technology. And I had one person tell me, oh, I'm not gonna use any kind of technology in my classroom. I don't believe in technology. And those that kind of shocked me because I came from a school district, you know that we were one to one K-12 and technology was in everything we did. So moving into district was kind of a culture shock for me. So I had a lot to learn and I decided I was gonna make this person my project. So I started, I just emailed her and I said, hey, I'm coming to your class at this particular time. What are you learning? And so trying to build that relationship. So I came consistently every week for like five or six weeks. And then finally she was like, oh my gosh, look how engaged my students are. Oh my goodness, look at what they're doing. And I'm like, yeah, technology is so exciting. So it took a lot of like forcing myself into their classroom to get them excited about technology. And now this particular teacher, she comes to all my PD sessions willingly. So build that relationship, right? Back to the basics, build that relationship. But I think that's always good advice. And I still have a lot, I still have teachers that, I'm still in the process of working with. And technology integration is not an overnight process. It's something you have to continually work on. So yeah. Right, exactly, exactly. Well, Faith, we appreciate all of your time here today. All of our questions have been answered at least up to this point. So I'm gonna encourage anyone to reach out to you to continue this conversation but be sure that you, I'm sure have inspired many teachers here today and technology integrationists. And we can't wait to see how they take this into their own school. So thank you everyone for coming and thanks Faith for sharing your ideas. Thank you guys. Have a great afternoon and a great summer.