Personalized Learning

Today I had the privilege of bringing one of my professional development ideas to our staff. This summer I spent a lot of time searching for effective and beneficial professional development opportunities for our building. I read a lot about EdCamps and Unconferences, and ran across an interesting article about Personalized PD. The article discussed how the goal of Personalized PD is empowerment, and letting teachers decide what learning topics are relevant to them. I brought the idea up to my administrator, and was thrilled when he was willing to give Personalized PD a try! We decided to start Personalized PD this year, and provide teachers with an hour and a half once every six weeks. My hope is that if this goes well, the frequency will increase next year.
To get started, I set up a Personalized PD page on our MVPLC website, created goals and expectations, and located starting places and ideas for teachers. The website was ready for teachers as they came to our PD session, and they seemed a bit surprised that they were not entering a room for "one size fits all" PD. We had a variety of topics explored during the allotted time, and it was inspiring seeing the conversations teachers were having in person, on Twitter, and on our Padlet page. Overall, I think teachers enjoyed this PD, and I cannot wait for the next session to occur in October! Between Personalized PD, and our staff book study of Teach Like a Pirate, the 2014-2015 school year is off to an inspiring start!