1

Maximize Instruction through Professional Development

Safara Wright

Department of Education, Grand Canyon University

EAD-523

December 7, 2022

Dr. Dawn Johnson

 2

Outline

Learning Objectives

1. Teachers will be able to implement and use a variety of collaborative roles and structures

in their instructional time to maximize efficiency.

2. Teachers will be able to learn ways to monitor students and use accountable

conversations in their instructional time to maximize efficiency.

By allowing students to collaborate and giving them roles such as Time Keeper, Focus Keeper,

Material Manager, Writer, Speaker, Captain, and Encourager, less of the teacher will be needed

during whole group instruction. In addition to this, using Plickers as a monitoring tool retrieves

immediate data from learning checks. These strategies allow teachers to maximize their

instructional time to create small groups and to reteach lessons. This helps students to improve

and reach their academic goals and success. The Professional Standards for Educational Leaders

encourages educators to use strategies to help students to make academic progress (2015).

Timeline

It is never easy to implement strategies right away and to make adjustments to your

instructional time. However, it benefits both teachers and students to make these

implementations gradually. Teachers will need time to prepare resources for collaborative

structures and roles. They will need to set up the appropriate technology resource to monitor

students. In addition teachers will need to use accountable talking stems and supports to increase

conversations. These strategies will take time and effort. However, the reward at the end will
 3

pay off, as students’ confidence, engagement, interaction and performance will increase. To add

to this, using these strategies will allow students to take ownership of their learning and

classroom. These preparations and strategies will allow teachers to have more time to maximize

their instructional time. Teachers gain and can maximize their time by collaborating with others

and observing modeled lessons. In the Literary Effect, Kasey Keihl explains that making your

classroom open to other teachers is one the easiest and most effective ways to build teacher

capacities and efficacy (2022). It is effective because it allows teachers to see the student and

teacher interaction come alive. This allows them to know that whatever they are going to

implement is feasible.

Timeline Activity

Day 1 Professional Development

Day 1 Professional Development Evaluation

Day 3-5 Model or Observation (Face to Face or Video)

Week 2 Implementation of Strategies & Informal Walkthroughs

Week 2 Feedback from Admin & Collaboration in PLCs

Week 3 Walkthroughs

A month from Day 5 Data, Areas of Strengths and Areas to Improvements/Adjustments

 4

Agenda

1 Hour Session

Opening: Sign & Icebreaker Activity - 5 minutes

Presentation: What is Collaborative Structures, Roles, Talking Stems? 15 minutes

Activity: Grade Level Break Out Groups - 10 Minutes

Use accountable talking stems with your group.

Activity: Sharing - 5 minutes

Presentation: Using Plickers as Monitor Tools: 10 Minutes

Activity: Demonstration of Using Plickers (Question & Answer Session): 5 minutes

Wrap Up & Resources, PD Evaluation - 10 minutes

Description of the Presentation

The Presentations at the Professional Development will provide teachers with

information, explanation and examples to give more understanding of the topics. It will be

presented through a powerpoint presentation. Teachers will be able to engage, collaborate and

interact in the grade level groups, as they perform the activities. The first activity will be using

the Collaborative Roles and Structures. Teachers will be assigned roles such as Time Keeper,

Focus Keeper, Captain, Writer, Speaker, and Encourager, With these roles teachers will use the

accountable talking stems in their groups. Each group will have a different collaborative
 5

structure (Examples: Gallery Walk, Round Robin, Partner Talk). By being involved and seeing

the elements in action, teachers will be able to implement these strategies in their classrooms.

Allowing teachers to share their thoughts of the activity and what they learnt will give everyone

greater insights and take-aways. The next presentation is using Plickers as a monitoring tool.

This part of the session will be a power point presentation and a video presentation. In the

demonstration all teachers will use the Plickers Cards to answer questions from the PD session.

Here they will learn to use the monitoring tools. Lastly, the Wrap Up and Resources activity will

be open for teachers to ask questions. All teachers will receive a set of Plickers and a digital file

of the Accountable Talking Stems and Collaborative Roles. Sending it digitally will allow

teachers to edit and make adjustments to make them to their own liking. Research has shown

that a rich repertoire of resources can make a difference between a lousy lesson and a great one

(Hessey, 2016). Adding resources to instructional time makes lessons more effective and

engaging.

Accountability Plan

It is important that teachers make implementations from Professional Development. This

is why there will be walkthroughs. The walkthroughs are not to intimidate teachers.

Administration Team and Instructional Coaches are there to provide support, model and give

constructive feedback. Teachers are to use a checklist for the strategies they implement. They

are to take notes/journals to record how well the implementations are and if adjustments need to

be made to the instructional plans. More importantly, they should compare the data from the

start of the implementation, middle and end. By doing this, teachers are able to make decisions

that are based on observations, evidence and not just opinions.

 6

References

Hessey S. (2016) What Makes A Good Teaching Resource? Retrieved on December 7, 2022

from https://edu.rsc.org/opinion/what-makes-a-good-teaching-resource/2010166.article

Kiehl, K (2022) Building Collective Teacher Efficacy to Improve Student Learning Retrieve on

December 7, 2022 from

https://theliteracyeffect.com/2022/05/01/building-collective-teacher-efficacy-to-improve-

student-learning/

National Policy Board for Educational Administration (2015), Professional Standards for

Educational Leaders 2015. Reston, VA Retrieved on December 7, 2022 from

ttps://www.npbea.org/psel