Tag: professional development

10 Ways to Use ChatGPT as a PYP Curriculum Coordinator

10 Ways to Use ChatGPT as a PYP Curriculum Coordinator

Are you resisting Artificial Intelligence (AI), afraid it’s going to lead to the destruction of our humanity, eliminating our jobs and withering our brains? Stop that! No, really that kind of thinking stifles creativity and innovation, and if you are a pedagogical leader, then you have an obligation to embrace emerging technologies. We are guiding our programs to develop our learners to be leaders of tomorrow. We can’t cling to the past. And when I say the past, I’m not talking about 500 B.C.E., I’m talking about 5 months ago. In fact, the past is no longer bygone days of old. It is one hour ago. To keep up with the fast-paced world, we must be open to change and agile.

So, let’s face the facts, just like smartphones aren’t going away, AI isn’t either. I’m not suggesting that you should let AI usurp your intelligence, I’m telling you that can use it to augment it and give your creativity a boost. Our jobs as PYP Curriculum Coordinators are complex, and often times we work in near isolation, so we could use a little help from AI from time to time. Although I plan to dedicate part of my summer learning to tinkering on ChatGPT to figure out more uses, here are at least 10 ways that you might use it to brainstorm and elevate your program right now:

  1. Use it to inspire ideas during planning meetings: From provocations to possible field trips to inspiring student action, if teachers are in a rut, then stoke their creativity with a few ideas from AI.
  2. Write or re-write central ideas: Wordy or confusing central ideas can be banished easily. If you work in a candidate school or your POI needs enhancing, then put in the related concepts and the aspect of your transdisciplinary theme you want to cover. Don’t forget to put in “child-friendly language” into your request before you hit send.
  3. Create newsletters or articles for your learning community: Does your marketing department ask you to create newsletters? Are they due tomorrow? Well, give yourself a helping hand with plugging in your ideas and let it design a first draft so you can improve upon it and make those deadlines.
  4. Generate ideas for parent meeting topics and activities: Ever been stumped on planning a parent meeting, or coming up with novel ways to work with parents to address their concerns?
  5. Rewrite communication to check for tone and bias: Written communication, particularly emails, sometimes can hurt or upset staff or families. This is especially true when we are stressed or the topic is emotionally charged. Better to have AI rewrite your email so that it is more sensitive to the culture and issues in your community.
  6. Come up with ways to improve teacher instructional practice: Some teachers really could use help but you may not be sure how best to help support them. Whether you want to come up with behavior management techniques or approaches to lesson planning, ChatGPT can help you coach teachers.
  7. Develop our Program Development Plans: Oh yes, that’s right, struggle with your action research no more! ChatGPT will help you come up with goals, timelines, and possible ways to collect evidence for your school to move forward with its growth.
  8. Create solutions to scheduling problems: Time is the only thing I can’t get a refund on, so I want to use it wisely.  Whether I’m trying to find creative ways to get collaborative planning time with homeroom and specialist teachers, or I’m trying to figure out better time-management techniques for myself, using ChatGPT to hack these problems seems like a good use.
  9.  Plan Professional Development Sessions: Sometimes I walk out of a week of team meetings and think to myself that I should do a PD. But I don’t always have the time to make good on this desire. Throw the idea into ChatGPT to cut down on the cognitive load of PD design to come up with fun and interesting ways to design professional learning. It doesn’t matter if it is a 15-minute PD or a 2-Day training, it will definitely save time and inspire you to find engaging ways to promote professional learning.
  10. Cross-walk standards: There are so many aspects of the curriculum that we have to manage, and mapping out the expectations and objectives of one set of curriculum standards to another is time-consuming. You can input your standards and ask it to find commonalities to ensure that our programme of inquiry and classroom instruction is comprehensive. Imagine what you could do with all that time if you got a head-start with ChatGPT!!

Bonus idea: Make sense of data: AIs are pattern-finding machines! Use it to help you triangulate data and generate optimal assessment practices for your program’s learning goals.

I hope this sparks your imaginative use of ChatGPT, inspiring and supporting your pedagogical leadership. I bet if you copy and pasted my 10 ideas into ChatGPT, it could give 10 more ways that we could use it. Go ahead! And share that with me! I want to expand and excel in my role as a coordinator. Let’s grow together!

And before I hit publish on this post, I’d like to leave you with some ideas from ChatGPT about some considerations for improving our results when we use it; it told me:

1. Be clear and specific: When you ask a question, try to be clear and specific about what you want to know. This will help the ChatGPT algorithm provide you with a more accurate response.

2. Use natural language: ChatGPT is designed to understand natural language, so try to phrase your questions in a way that feels natural to you. Avoid using overly technical or complex language.

3. Be patient: ChatGPT is an AI system that requires a few seconds to process your question and generate a response. Be patient and wait for the system to provide an answer before asking again.

4. Provide feedback: If you feel that ChatGPT is not providing you with useful answers, provide feedback to help the algorithm learn and improve. You can do this by rating the responses or providing additional information.

5. Stay on topic: ChatGPT is designed to answer specific questions. Try to stay on topic and avoid asking unrelated or vague questions. This will help the ChatGPT algorithm provide you with more accurate and relevant responses.

(By the way, I actually wrote this blog post… But who knows next time? lol.)

Well now that you have some ideas and tips, the skies are the limit! Let’s go forward into this new era of AI together!

The Role of the #PYP Coordinator: 3 Things that No One Wants to Learn the Hard Way

The Role of the #PYP Coordinator: 3 Things that No One Wants to Learn the Hard Way


About a month ago, I sat having wonderful discussions with PYP coordinators from all over the world in the Hague about the Enhanced PYP. Aside from curriculum, it got me thinking about other aspects of the leadership role of the Curriculum Coordinator. It’s not an easy position to be in and no 3-Day Workshop or online course can provide adequate training for your school’s special challenges.

As coordinators, we have the responsibility for The 3Cs: Climate, Curriculum, and Culture. It’s hard to say which one of the 3Cs comes first as a priority as they are critical to the success and impact you can make at your school.  You often have to juggle them and it’s hard to keep those balls up in the air but they have to stay in motion. The impact they have on the community can help to create a contagion of positivity and goodwill if done well. Most of our professional development comes from the context of those 3Cs and they take time to develop. And no coordinator can be successful alone–they need a team, and teams develop through relationships.  I think having empathy and coming from the perspective of “the teacher” is particularly important as it relates to developing staff relationships, and there are few things that I wish someone would have advised me on when it came to the role.

People Before Paperwork

We are human beings, not human doings.  You’ve got to consider people over paperwork because people are our job–whether it’s the little people in our classrooms or the big people that make up our staff. paperworkI know we have our checklists of paperwork that we have to stay on top of, but at the end of the day, I’d rather have teachers focused on making sure the kids have engaging, authentic and impactful learning and I have rarely found that paperwork inspires them to create that. This is especially true at PYP schools in which we have to reflect often on our students’ learning so that we can determine the next steps in their inquiries

I had one coordinator who used to come in nearly weekly and, during our meetings, he would put our conversations about learning into the PYP planner or onto our scope and sequence documents so that the ideas were documented (ticked the box) and the teachers could engage in more creative thinking during collaboration time. Also, I had more time to communicate with families, look at data and plan more thoughtful provocations.

Coordinators should always look for opportunities to free up time so that teachers don’t have to be bogged down so much with paperwork and instead shift their focus to making learning impactful.

Professional Relationships: You get people ON the bus when you don’t put people UNDER the bus

A common mistake that coordinators make is that they complain to teachers about the administrators as a bid for connections. Don’t throw administration under the bus in front of teachers. As a new or aspiring leader, choosing to throw someone under the bus is one of the telling signs of your leadership capabilities.

[bctt tweet=”When you blame somebody else for something that you should be taking some responsibility for, you are communicating weakness and not strength” username=”judyimamudeen”] In most situations, you can be a change agent so you should be seeking solutions and not be projecting your frustrations onto the staff.  I know it may help you to “feel” that can connect more with the teacher’s perspective but it’s unprofessional and you will develop a culture of complaint and gossip. Who really wants that?

evalutionAnd it’s poor form to throw teachers under the bus in front of teachers. Trust is so important in your work so if you undermine others, expect staff to lose their confidence in you.

It’s the Law of Karma-what is said aloud, goes aloud. So Watch your mouth! The minute you walk away, that teacher you complained to is wondering “hmmm… I wonder what my coordinator tells others about me?” If you feel that a teacher isn’t working up to their potential, talk TO them directly (not ABOUT them) and in a non-threatening way, and seek out a mentor for them. Also, how you say what you say matters. Under your breath, if you must, repeat the mantra: Stay professional. Stay Professional. Stay Professional.

I’m not going to lie here. I have suffered from bouts of “Insert Foot into Mouth Disease” and, goodness knows, that I have had to go back to a staff member to apologize for saying something in a wrong way.  But, for me, it’s more important to have peace and understanding than lose face. However, I once worked with a vice-principal who NEVER ONCE said an unkind word about anyone. EVER. He had plenty of opportunities to humor me with grievances but he never did. Bless him. I thought of him as a saint. And if he asked me to jump, I was like “How high?” and “Would you like sprinkles with that?” He is still my inspiration today because he was always compassionate, generous, thoughtful and caring.  Now, if we all could aspire to that level of professionalism, imagine what a peaceful and productive school we’d have.

Communication: The Human Touch 

Have you ever played a game but you didn’t know the rules? You read the rule book (if there was one) but you just didn’t get the gist of the game. It was frustrating, wasn’t it? You felt like you could never win.

Often that happens with procedures and policies at school. Admin sends them policy manuals and handbooks (if you have them) and tells them to read it. And through osmosis, they are expected them to “get it” and feel successful in managing the systems and practices of your school community. New teachers need explicit explanations of the rules and norms of this “game” called At Our School We Do….. Sometimes coordinators do this through an induction program that is spread out over time. I know that I have dedicated a period of weeks to this and I found it highly successful. My staff feedback was that it mitigated the overwhelm of their transition and helped develop our personal relationship.

Another coordinator I know has staff meetings “end” early during key times in the year (like the 1st 3-way conference, or report writing time, etc..) so that she can have a Q and A sessions with teachers about expectations and protocols for important events. The staff members who already know these procedures and processes feel happy because they can “be released” to do other work, meanwhile, the teachers (mainly new teachers) who need some support can stay behind and get their needs met as well. Later, she sends a follow-up email documenting the expectations that help these teachers to remember those conversations.

Speaking of Emails vs. Meetings

emailsCall me Old Fashion, but I prefer the personal touch of staff meetings over email any day. I like connecting with colleagues and having a common understanding of the events in our community and our school’s pedagogical approaches. Also, consider the fact that if teachers are more concerned with keeping up with emails, rushing to read them then they are not examining students’ work or reflecting on the discussions they had, then the focus isn’t on improving learning. We want teachers to be spending their cognitive power on making learning for students awesome rather than your 18-bullet email about professional development goals. Let that one sink in a bit. It’s good to have a weekly newsletter to communicate important things but if you find that your staff emails began as a couple of sentences and now is evolving paragraphs, then it needs a face to face. A quick and dirty chat will be more impactful than a back and forth conversation over the internet.

And one last point about “the human touch”-Do you go into classrooms? Or do teachers have to come to you? Are you “The Boss” or are you “a colleague and mentor”? How you present and project yourself weighs heavily on the level of trust and compliance you will develop with your team.  Kindness and connection are vital to the work we do in schools. It’s how you build trust and loyalty.  Talk to you teachers-You don’t have to be charismatic and bubbly but you do have to have sincere enthusiasm for the work they are doing in classrooms. We all need encouragement sometimes and when you say it to their face, it is always more meaningful and authentic than an email blast. It’s great to give them recognition amongst their peers but to take the time to tell them in person is really powerful. Don’t underestimate the value and meaning of your words.

Perhaps you might relate to these challenges. As humans, we are all a bit flawed (except for that saintly vice-principal) and when you are in leadership your flaws are even more obvious. So I am wondering what other ideas and perspectives you might share that would help develop more positive staff relationships as we engage in their role in the curriculum. Tips and tricks welcomed in the comments below!

#IMMOOC Growth Mindset vs. Innovator’s Mindset: 3 Ways to Amplify Your Professional Development

#IMMOOC Growth Mindset vs. Innovator’s Mindset: 3 Ways to Amplify Your Professional Development

During week 3 of the Innovator’s Mindset MOOC (#IMMOOC), Tara Martin shared her ideas about challenging ourselves professionally. It’s not enough to have a growth mindset because it’s still a passive form of professional growth. When you have a growth mindset, although you know you can learn and change, you’re still just a “consumer of learning” and not adding something to the landscape of education until you become a “contributor of learning”, which, in Tara’s definition, is what is the key distinguishing factor of an “innovator’s mindset”.  When I heard her say that, it really resonated with me and made me think about how educators can make the shift from a growth mindset to an innovator’s mindset.

These are 3 ways that you can start making the transition from learning to becoming an innovator in education.

Develop Competance: Take your professional development seriously: 

Stop waiting for your administrators to send you to a workshop or sign you up for a course. If you’re going to be a leader of learning, then you have to set professional goals for yourself and develop your own “course” of learning. I created a whole podcast around developing a personalized professional learning plan and wrote an ebook around it because I know how impactful it can be to take charge of your professional development.  Challenge yourself to cancel your Netflix subscription or cable service for 1 month and just take that “down time” to create personal learning time. You’ll be amazed what can happen in your classroom when you go from “mindless” activities to “mindfull” activities when you begin to dedicate yourself to lifelong learning. Then take those learnings and put them into practice in the classroom.

Develop Confidence: Start a blog/vlog/podcast:

Recently our PYP coordinator shared The Profile of a Modern Teacher which encapsulates so much of what we talk about during our Innovator’s Mindset MOOC, in which it’s not about our use of technology but it’s our “habits of the mind” that determines the impact we make in our classroom. And the 1st Habit of the Mind that a Modern Teacher has is to choose to be vulnerable. I found that interesting and poignant of the state of where we are in education. As educators, we need to expose our thinking and practices so that we can be a contributing “digital citizen” and help our students appreciate and navigate their roles in the digital landscape that they will be a part of (if they are not already). I’ve written about this before: if you’re not struggling and embarrassed, then you’re not teaching digital natives.   At the bare minimum, you have to experiment with one if not all of these forms of media. But more importantly, you need to start taking your role as a digital citizen seriously and find a way to contribute to the larger discussion about education. I know you have wonderful and compelling ideas–start sharing them!! A blog is probably the easiest and requires the least amount of tech saavy to start but videos are also amazingly easy to do too with all the software we have out there. And, yes, your first attempts are going to be lame–that’s just a part of the process. And it doesn’t even have to be about education–maybe your passion is golf or making homemade peanut butter–do that then. But do something. You will never get better if you don’t get started. If you aren’t exploring one of these platforms, today is the day! (No pressure….. but pressure!!)

 

Dialogue Digitally: Share and connect with others:

If I’m being honest (and vulnerable), this is something that I am working on developing.  I’m a person who likes to connect with people face to face and find it awkward with sending a message or reaching out to someone digitally to discuss an idea or ask a question if I haven’t met them in “real” life. I’m really good at looking at the Twitter feeds or joining Facebook groups to get some inspiration, but I rarely share my “learning moments” in the classroom or add to the discussion. If you met me in person, I have a strong voice (a little on the loud side) and I am a bit self-conscious about it. So, in my digital social life, I am rather quiet. Are you like that too?

I know being a “connected educator” is hugely important. Again, because we have to embrace and practice the skills of a digital citizen; however, there’s an incredible amount of power in connecting with educators or thought leaders outside your 4 walls. And when I read in the Innovator’s Mindset that quote about the difference between a “school teacher” vs. a “classroom teacher”, it got me thinking about how I might impact students outside of my grade level. As I think about the power of collaboration, my silence is not adding value to my practice nor to the landscape of education. I really should be reaching out to other educators, not only because it is helpful for MY students but ALL the students at our school, as well as the ideas I share or the conversations I have that can impact students at OTHER schools. The ripple effect is possible with social media, isn’t it?

So, I am making a commitment to make baby steps towards developing myself as a “school teacher” as well as participating in larger conversations through online chats. At our school, we have started displaying Tweet Beams using our hashtag #ourvis. Besides trying to stay active in this wonderful IMMOOC community, I also want to contribute to my school’s digital identity by trying to make tweets about what we are up to in our grade 1 classroom. I’m also trying to make a point to make comment on the blogs that I read so that I can engage in a discussion with people whose ideas I find challenging or interesting. I may have a small number of ways that I am connecting and developing my professional learning network (PLN), but it’s something that I am creating an intention around for my professional growth. Maybe you might feel compelled to do the same.

I hope these ideas have planted a seed in how you can go from being a “consumer” to being a “contributor” in our educational landscape. I’m deeply curious what other suggestions you might have about ways in which we can challenge ourselves into becoming more innovative. Please comment below.

Teacher 3.0

Teacher 3.0

Teacher 3.0–keeping our practice current and relevant.

You know the difference between something alive and something dead?–Something alive is growing, while something dead is NOT!  With that in mind, it’s really important to continue to develop our understanding of how our student’s learn best and update our teaching practice. For many of us, we need to take a certain number of training courses or attend conferences in order to stay abreast of what is happening and maintain our credentials. But the good news is that nowadays we don’t have to go to bricks and mortar schools or centers in order to learn something new. There are a lot of great online professional development available right in the comfort of your home.

Here is a smattering of some high quality resources and many of them offer certificated courses. Some are for a fee, but most are completely FREE.

Teachers First

What a great resource this is!  Not only does it have frequent professional development that is FREE, if you attend a live online event, you can get a certificate for it. Lovely, isn’t it! Also, it has a ton of lesson plans and activities that are designed for 21st century learning.  Just can’t beat this one!

Intel Teach Elements

I have taken Intel’s professional development and it was easy to implement in my intermediate grade’s classroom. The topics are very much geared toward blending technology in the classroom and is a terrific resource that is absolutely FREE. (Gosh, I just love that word). The e-learning material generally take more than sitting to complete and you might want to have some of your fellow grade-level/subject team members join you–The content’s that fabulous!

Arizona State University’s Learning Forever!

I have taken very low cost courses through ASU for my teaching license, but they  constantly have FREE webinars on topics such as the Common Core and Gifted Education. It doesn’t cost you a thing to join, which makes this very economical.

Other Colleges and Universities with Free Online Courses

I can’t speak directly for these all of these courses but there is an amazing number of colleges and universities that are offering FREE e-learning courses. From MIT to Stanford, the list of reputable universities is substantial, and it covers many topics outside of just education. Many of them will even offer college credit for participating. Very cool, indeed!

SEETA

You have to register (free) in order to attend a web course, but it’s great because the guest presenters are experts and have a range of topics that are offered weekly. Even though this website is from the “South Eastern European Teachers”, the topics are relevant no matter where you teach. It’s great to get a global perspective on best practices, and you are sure to learn something.

Association for School Curriculum and Development 

If you don’t have a membership to this, then sign up today. I can’t recommend this enough. It is covers all sorts of topics about American policy and practice, and reports on the latest research. It’s an invaluable resource. As a member, you have numerous free webinars that you can enjoy, and they also offer more substantial online professional development.

Edublogger

Most educators are interested in blogging, so this link is simply for a very cool how to on using blogs for personal use and in your classroom.

Electronic Open Village

This is a yearly event offered through TESOL CALL-IS. They (TESOL) have in-person conferences in America, which focus on Teaching English as a Second Language, but the Electronic Open Village (EVO) has a “Computer-Assisted Language Learning Interest Section, which exists to define issues and standards in the field of computer-mediated language instruction, promote research and development in the area of computer-based language learning and disseminate information about CALL to ESL/EFL educators worldwide.” What does that mean for you?–some really cool and FREE e-learning that is focused on helping our English Language Learners. Who doesn’t need more help in this area?  And the best part is that it is geared toward obtaining more technology skills as educators. Yep, check another box. It’s pretty terrific!

Please let me know if you found any of these resources useful for you. Also, feel free to add some other quality lo professional development that you know of–we are all here to learn!

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