Creating a Culture of Growth Before Implementing Professional Learning

Purpose & objective

The purpose of the presentation is to show schools and districts how they can build initiatives such as STEAM or literacy by first building a culture that values growth and understands how to look for opportunities for continued learning. In Baldwin County we have found that teachers who have completed the eMINTS program have a deeper understanding of lesson design and are more willing to participate in additional learning opportunities.

We use the eMINTS Model for professional development. eMINTS has received the ISTE Seal of Alignment for Professional Development. We have taken the strategies and pedagogy from eMINTS and used them in all of our professional development offerings and have seen that it is universal. The model has helped us revolutionize how we deliver any professional development in our district. The ideas of coaching and classroom support have seen such success that the district added curriculum coaches to the academic vision and plan.

*Participants will observe how to establish learning communities that value growth and change.
*Participants will examine and discuss how leadership can create opportunities for future professional development by creating a culture that values learning and actively participates in changing the vision for learning in a district.
*Participants will brainstorm how to move toward a growth mindset for professional learning in their district or school.

Outline

The class will be very interactive. We will use actives that will move participants around and make them interact with each other. We will engage in talk moves and small group discussion with whole group sharing. We want them to see the concepts in action.

While the time will depend on the size of the group the following outline will be a rough estimate of how we will move through the session.

Opener: Participants will be asked find a shoulder partner that's not in their row or table that's from a different state. They will share who they are, where they are from, and what their favorite type of food is and why.

Reflect: We will ask the participants why was it important that we made them move away from people that they are already comfortable with and how that can help build community.

We will introduce ourselves and show the backchannel for the session.

Activity 1: What does it mean to have a growth mindset?
Participants will find two other people who have similar shoes. They will have a discussion about growth mindset and how it's essential to any good professional development. After their discussion one person will post their thoughts to the backchannel.

Reflect: Why does growth mindset matter so much in professional development and culture change?

Activity 2: What do we do in our district?
We will take a short time to explain how our professional development is set up and how we have infused all of our professional learning with the same type of strategies to create a cohesive plan for the district so that teachers are getting the same message of growth and change at every possible event.

Reflect: In the backchannel: Why is important that all professional development have a thread of growth mindset running through it?

Activity 3: What is eMINTS?
Participants will from groups of three based on their birth month. Each group will assigned a quadrant of the eMINTS model to research or discuss. Jan-Mar birthdays: Authentic Learning, Apr - June: Powered by Technology, July- Sept: High Quality Lesson Design, and Oct - Dec: Community of Learners. Each group will answer the question "How do you think your quadrant can affect professional learning" in the back channel.
We will go over their answer and discuss as a group.

Reflection: How can what we teach educators to do become practice for professional development

Closing: As whole group we will wrap up the discussion by pointing out the choices we made in the professional development they just went through and then reflect on how that impacted what we learned.

Supporting research

http://emints.org/i3-grant/

http://mindsetscholarsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/What-We-Know-About-Growth-Mindset.pdf

https://ajaxscientific.com/the-importance-of-a-growth-mindset-in-stem-education/