Compentency Based Flipped Professional Development

Video Transcription

In this tutorial, I'll model for you the creation of a flipped professional development activity that is competency based. We'll begin by taking a more general look at designing a flipped professional development lesson. And then I will show you how to use an online platform to actually build the lesson. Let's get started.

Let's begin with an overview of designing a flipped professional development lesson. I've chosen to align my lesson to a district initiative that asks teachers to use a gamified approach to grading in conjunction with differentiated strategies in order to better meet the needs of all learners.

Since we want to use a competency-based approach here, I will identify a couple of competency-based objectives for my lesson. First, teachers should demonstrate their ability to differentiate instruction through the use of tiered assignments. And second, teachers should implement gamification to track student progress.

A best practice in designing effective professional development is to align our competency-based objectives back to professional teacher standards. My first objective is aligned with elements 1b and 1d of the Danielson Framework and also with domains 1 and 2 of Marzano's teacher evaluation model. My second objective is aligned with elements 1c and 1f of the Danielson Framework and once again with domains 1 and 2 of Marzano's teacher evaluation model.

Once again, remember that these competency-based objectives are by design aligned with that district initiative. And we also want to make sure that we are aligning to high-yield instructional strategies as well, whether those are coming from Marzano's high-yield instructional strategies or perhaps John Hattie's Visible Learning.

Clearly here, since I am aligned with domains one and two of Marzano's framework, it's going to be a natural fit then also to implement Marzano's high-yield instructional strategies. And using tiered assignments to meet the needs of all learners definitely fits into that realm.

Consider the types of elements that you would like to incorporate into your lesson. I would like to incorporate introductory videos on both tiered assignments and gamification. I would like to locate some other support materials to include as well.

I also would like to include some formative assessment, perhaps quizzes on tiered assignments and gamification, maybe some suggestions or templates for self-reflection, and maybe a survey that teachers would complete at the end of the lesson.

There are a number of online platforms that are well suited for creating flipped lessons or flipped learning opportunities. I am going to demonstrate the creation of this flipped lesson using Sophia. In your web browser, go to sophia.org. If you already have a Sophia account, you can sign in. Or you can create a new account using your email address, or you can link a new account to your Facebook or Google Plus account.

Once you're logged into Sophia, create a new tutorial by selecting Create New near the top of the screen and selecting Tutorial. After you follow the onscreen prompts, you will have created a skeleton or a framework for your flipped lesson.

You can then build your lesson by using the options in the Insert menu. The options here allow you to insert text, images, audio files, videos. And you can even embed an entire web page or web-based activity into the lesson using the HTML link.

So let's take a look at my completed flipped lesson. I've included a video introduction to tiered assignments and a video introduction to gamification. Both of these were videos located on YouTube. I've included a PDF document that is embedded right into the lesson so that teachers can reference this easily.

I've included a web link to a website called Open Badges where teachers can create gamification badges for their students. And I've also embedded a link to Teched Up Teacher, which includes more resources that teachers can consult for gamification options.

Teachers who are going to be participating in this professional development can access this lesson by logging into Sophia and then either clicking on a direct link to the lesson or by being assigned this lesson as part of a Sophia group. They can access the elements in the lesson in any order in which they would like to do so.

And remember, if I want to include that formative assessment in the form of a quiz, I can click the Add a quiz button and write my own quiz that is related to the lesson. Or if I wish, I could locate quizzes or other types of formative assessments online and link to those in the lesson as well.

Remember, teachers can access these online materials from anywhere and at any time. And they can also revisit this flipped lesson any time that they want to as often as they need to access it if they need a refresher, or again, if they just want to learn more about the topic.

Remember to clearly communicate both access instructions and the purpose of this activity to your team. Emphasize that this flipped lesson is a part of the professional development activity design for your overarching professional development plan. Often, a flipped lesson like this is going to lead into a larger, more traditional, in-person professional development activity. And so if that's the case, make that clear to the involved teachers as well.

As an example, then, I might communicate to my teachers that this is the flipped lesson that they need to be accessing. I would give them a clear time frame, for example, two weeks that they would have to access this information before our in-person workshop. And then at the actual in-person workshop, we would be able to focus on how to implement these tiered assignments, how to implement the skills in gamified grading or in gamification in general.

Teachers would be able to come to that workshop prepared with any potential questions or concerns. And we wouldn't have to spend a great deal of time at the workshop explaining the basics of the concepts because teachers would already have accessed the online flipped lesson and gotten those basics down before even showing up to the workshop.

Now it's your turn to stop and reflect. Consider signing up for your own account on Sophia or another similar platform. And try designing a flipped professional development lesson that might support an upcoming professional development workshop.

To dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, be sure to check out the additional resources section associated with this video. This is where you'll find links targeted toward helping you discover more ways to apply this course material. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.