Game Time! Make Your PD Unforgettable!

Purpose & objective

Make your PD fun, energetic and exciting! Come see how we take a K-12 staff and use a different theme each year such as Candyland, Rocky and TikTok--we get them excited for a school year of technology. Activities such as the Chopped Game Show, Learning Menus, Ed Camp, App Smash, AR/VR, and scavenger hunts take teachers professional development to a different level allowing them to have fun and learn new strategies and best practices to use in their classrooms. There's also lots of CANDY, PRIZES and SWAG to be won by the teachers! See how elementary and secondary teachers collaborate to share ideas and improve student learning!

Through the years, we have found that teachers are tired of the "sit and get" type of professional development. In our district we created a program called "PUGS" or Power User Group. Each year we teachers that want to be leaders in technology together for our PUG institute. During these days we engage the teachers in gaining new instructional strategies and theories to use back in their classrooms. Not only will their students benefit they will be modeling to the other staff members new tools and instructional ideas.
We make sure that it is engaging, fun and relevant to their classrooms from K-12. We also switch it up and partners between elementary and secondary. We have found that both levels can learn from each other in teaching strategies. For example, we had a high school English teacher add a fidget basket to her classroom after being paired with a first grade teacher. Her students loved it and met the needs of her learning support students that needed that cool down area.
On the other hand, the high school teacher showed how she communicated with parents through Schoology-and the elementary teacher loved it.
We always segregate elementary vs secondary and in the end we are educating the whole child from K-12 so by them working together they know the expectations. The teachers definitely fought it at first, but now they are part of a whole district and not just separate buildings.
We are now in Year 6 of our PUG program and it has helped move our teachers in the use of technology. As technology specialists we can't get everywhere but working with these leaders we can help move more teachers in using technology to meet the needs of their students. Often times teachers just don't know what they don't know. So by working with our PUGS and training them and other teachers throughout the year in engaging activities- gives them the excitement to try it in their own classrooms. It is amazing the energy you feel at the end of a PD training. When does that actually happen!? Not often !

Outline

The outline below will go in order. As we go through the activities we will act them out and engage the audience in the activities. We will also host a back channel for questions and we have prizes to simulate how we actually run the PD. We will also have a Goose Chase running throughout the session to see who is learning! We will be passing out candy to put them into groups. We will also have a boxing ring set up and showcase our App Smash Boxing Match and end with a sharing session in the ring.

Introduction
-What are PUGs?
--Delivery of PD
-Schoology
Teams
-Elementary
-Secondary
Activities
-Goose Chase
Over the course of the PD
-Check-ins
-Heads Up
-SAMR
-6 Cs
-59 Apps in 59 Minutes
-Anti-worksheet Ideas
-App Smackdown (alternate delivery)
-Candyland
--Two Large Gameboards
Apps
-Chopped
-Teams of Four
-Team chooses App, Entree or Dessert
-Mini Ed Camp
Learning Menus
Conclusion:
- Put on the boxing gloves and share a tool or idea - end with participants sharing

Supporting research

Ditch That Textbook: Free Your Teaching and Revolutionize Your Classroom
Textbook by Matthew Miller. https://ditchthattextbook.com/

The Innovator's Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity by George Couros

https://www.studiesweekly.com/effective-professional-development-teachers/

PERSONAL & AUTHENTIC: DESIGNING LEARNING EXPERIENCES THAT IMPACT A LIFETIME by Thomas Murray