Living in the “free state” (insert eye roll) of Florida means I do not actually have much intellectual professional development available to me within driving distance. During summer, I manage to travel to engage my mind and get out of the humid heat but that is not always possible (babies or schedules or pandemics). One solid thing to come out of COVID, maybe the only positive, is that many organizations recognized that leveraging good virtual programs can be a way to increase your outreach and provide education to a wider audience with less overhead. Although I firmly believe in person is far superior, virtual has a useful place in continuing education, too.
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Communicate & Plan
As I said above I am a mom of two littles, that means my time is not my own. My husband is also a teacher, which helps because he also engages in at-home PD so we understand each other’s professional desires. I subscribe to many different groups that put on various professional development programs for teachers in my interested fields and the moment something catches my eye I check out or shared family calendar to see if the date is clear. Thankfully, for our timezone, virtual PD usually starts right after dinner time so we can still eat dinner as a family and then Will or I can pop off to the bedroom or study to engage in our virtual program. Yes, that means the other spouse has all the bedtime duties. Be mindful of how often you ask your spouse to take on the heroic effort of putting a 5 and 2 year old to bed solo.
in order to have the smoothest evening possible, there are a few plans to commit to ahead of time. Before I do evening virtual PD at home, I try to already have lunch boxes packed for the next day (or at least unpacked and cleaned), ideally dinner is easy prep or a leftovers night with minimal mess, lay out pjs and other needed bedtime routine items to make it easy for your spouse. I also prep the kids because the routine will change for the night. Sometimes, but rarely, the night goes smoothly. Usually it is batshit crazy and I can hear Will yelling from behind the door. Don’t ever leave the sanctuary of your virtual PD unless someone is dying. lol If you leave, you’ll never get back into it. If the night is hard, apologize to your spouse afterwards, maybe give them a hug, but if the kids are in a bad mood it has nothing to do with your choice to attend an educational program. It’s just life. Move on.
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Prepare to Focus
Decide where you will engaged in your virtual professional development. If you have kids, like me, it needs to be a seperate room with a door (and maybe a lock). If I plan on taking lots of notes and don’t want to split your screen during your virtual session, have a desk or table with your materials set up. At the minimum, get a comfy chair, your computer and charger, a drink or snack and enjoy. I think having video on is optimal, it forces you to look the part as well as listen, but you know sometimes I’m folding the laundry or packing lunch boxes while listening sooo in those moments the video is off.
I also know our time is short and we feel the pressure to multitask all the damn time. There are some activities that can be paired with engaging with a virtual PD and there are some that are a bad idea. I am not grading papers, or reading a book, or writing a blog post while trying to be present with a virtual PD. But I can totally fold laundry, heck this a better use of my time rather than watching TV while folding laundry. Someone is going to boohoo me giving permission to fold laundry while doing PD but I’m a mom and a teacher and busy. If I don’t give myself permission to do another activity then I would probably never sacrifice an hour or two of my precious evening to learning.
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Do the (Home)Work
Multi session virtual programs, the good ones anyways, usually have a mix of synchronous and asynchronous material. I have done many virtual PDs by the Institute for Curriculum Services and they excel at this. Even in their 1-2 hour sessions, they break up the “lecture” (aka the presenter talking) with mentimeter polls and padlets. This means you need to be an active learner, even while home. If it’s a 1 hour virtual session, I am totally fine just listening, taking notes if needed, but anything longer than that you are totally going to lose my attention if there is no virtual participation.
Doing the pre-reading is vitally important to getting the most out of a virtual PD. I love that virtual PD gives me a hour-long session with an expert in their field and when they ask for questions you know I am going to be ready with a good question. How embarrassing would it be to ask a question covered in the reading, and what a waste of time to ask a scholar a basic google-able question instead of one with nuance that could use that contact time with a scholar for reflection. Are there times I have skimped on the homework? Heck yes. Some multi-session PDs I have done han an excess of outside reading; too much considering I was not getting paid. Instead, I pick what is foundational to fill in information that I needed to best fit my teaching needs.
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Act on It…Eventually
I have not necessarily overhauled my teaching after ever virtual (or in person) professional development but it always makes me a more well-informed teacher. Sometimes it takes me years to update something or finally pull out a handout that I had sitting in a google drive folder somewhere, but it does make an impact. The best PDs make you want to update/tweak/change part of your lesson or maybe swap out a primary source. Honestly sooner is better than later before you forget what you learned. In the middle of the stream (or raging current) that is the school year, I usually cannot change something immediately, but I always write myself a note, include links and other ideas on my slide deck (hidden from the students) or send myself an email. This means that I am jotting down my ideas and I’ll get to it when I can. Don’t create more useless work for yourself, but it would be silly to attend all these PDs to have it not enhance your teaching. With a virtual PD, since I am already on the computer, I send myself an email before logging off for the night. That way I have the ideas ready to go in my inbox the next morning.
JMF
A little aside that we’ll see if it gets me in trouble…this summer I was targeted by a Trump-aligned group for my attendance at an in person PD years ago (I mean YEARS…pre-COVID). The topic was the Middle East and, of course, I blogged about my participation. Long story short, my freedom to attend PD on my own time and dime was protected and I am grateful for that. If I didn’t talk about this stuff online, I probably would not have been targeted. If I didn’t teach in Florida, I probably would not have been targeted. But I do, to both accounts, and I think my work and my voice is important. I say this simply because I need to put it out there. I hope this does not discourage anyone; instead I hope this encourages you to fight against the attempted right-wing gag order happening in education.
