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In this Q&A, eSchool News talks with Andi Morency, founder and CEO/director of The Honors Academy of Literature in Reno, Nevada.
What does your school's professional development model look like right now?
In The Honorary Literature AcademyWe intend to support the continued growth of our teachers. As such, we created a professional development model that focuses on providing:
- Ongoing opportunities for teachers to engage in professional learning. This includes in-person and technology-enabled learning that specifically focuses on strengthening culturally responsive teaching, differentiated instruction, and inclusive practices.
- Mathematical support. In addition to the areas above, we provide our teachers with specific professional development to help them strengthen their mathematics instruction, particularly as it aligns with helping students master skills related to concepts and procedures.
- Helps with data-driven decision making. We use the Data improvement process throughout the school to help our teachers make evidence-based decisions. This eight-step model focuses on collaboration to help improve both teaching and learning.
- Collaborative teaching opportunities. Our professional development model includes dedicated time for educators to work together to plan, execute, and evaluate lessons.
As we look at the future of teaching and learning, as it relates to professional development, what are your priorities for educators at your school?
We are always looking for ways to better support our teachers so that they, in turn, can better serve our students. And to achieve this, it is essential to provide solid and continuous professional development.
With our professional development model and innovative use of technology, our overall goals are to help our teachers develop instructional capacity; improve your skills to provide personalized learning; further develop your competence in the implementation of new technologies; and strengthen their abilities to support diverse students, especially given our school's above-average population of students with IEPs.
What can happen regarding student learning when a school or district has a strong professional development framework?
A strong professional development framework can directly impact both teaching and learning. It helps boost teachers' ability to differentiate and personalize their instruction to meet individual student needs, ultimately leading to better academic outcomes for students, particularly in critical subjects like mathematics.
Through continuing professional development, teachers develop the skills to create more engaging and innovative learning experiences, as well as more dynamic classroom environments, to support all students.
Without a doubt, ai dominates the headlines these days. How are your teachers using Edthena's ai Coach platform to support their professional growth? What benefits do you think will come from ai training for PD? Are there specific areas that ai can expand that have traditionally been difficult for other PD approaches to address?
We implement the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.edthena.com/ai-coach-for-teachers/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>ai Trainer platform as part of our innovative peer-to-peer training model to further improve instructional practices. This peer coaching model consists of three cycles throughout the year to provide teachers with numerous opportunities for reflection and professional growth.
The process begins with teachers recording a lesson and uploading it to the ai Coach platform, which uses conversational ai to help teachers analyze the video against our professional rubrics and teaching standards, as well as receive personalized tips and resources to improve. This gives teachers the opportunity to reflect on themselves and really dig deeper into their practice.
After the ai analysis part of the cycle, teachers share their videos on the Edthena VC3 video coaching platform so that your peers can review the lesson through the lens of specific strategies highlighted in our rubrics. This peer review process enables human insights and contextual understanding, which complements ai training.
Teachers then engage in structured discussions using observations from both the ai and peer coaching portions of the cycle as talking points. These conversations aim to identify effective teaching strategies, areas for improvement, and innovative instructional approaches. From these discussions, teachers collaboratively established specific goals to improve their practices before beginning the next cycle.
By implementing ai Coach, teachers have the opportunity to reflect on their practice and receive additional support before collaborating with their peers. This provides an additional layer to the peer training process, as teachers continually work to monitor their progress, implement new strategies, and refine their teaching methods.
The benefits of this approach are substantial: it provides objective initial ai feedback, incorporates diverse perspectives through peer reviews, fosters focused discussions on teaching strategies, encourages continuous improvement, and enhances collaboration among faculty.
Have you experienced any pushback or uncertainty from educators around ai training for PD? If so, how have you addressed those concerns?
While ai can raise many questions for school leaders and teachers, its use for teacher professional development does not have to be “scary” when carefully implemented. For us, it was low risk with potential for high reward.
We were very clear with our teachers about how the ai training would be used and how it would complement, not replace, the peer-to-peer and in-person training they were already receiving. With this understanding in place and with our shared commitment to professional growth, we have been able to create a supportive environment focused on continuous improvement so that we can better support our students.
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