I remember hearing a vox from Justin Schleider about free professional development, and that vox has stuck with me for quite some time. His idea was about free PD where every teacher brings a lesson to share. I loved the idea and could wait to get it going. I was a new member of the Wisconsin Health and Physical Education Board (SE District Coordinator) and this was my first idea I wanted to implement. The board loved the idea and let me run with it. Two years later and the model has switched some, but the idea of free PD is amazing to me. I can feel the excitement every time a new workshop begins and when it's done, I can't wait to being planning the next one. This blog is about how I make it happen every other month. I have found that a 4 hour workshop is best, because most people have to travel a half an hour to an hour to get to the PD site. I also continue to move them around the district, so the opportunity can be there for more and more educators.
Find a Host Site
| There are many physical education teachers, staff, and schools that are looking for more professional development. Not everyone can travel to your state or national conferences. A host site brings PD directly to your school. It allows you to show off your facilities to the surrounding schools / teachers. I sent out a google form to the SE Wisconsin health and physical educators and one question I asked is if they are willing to be a host school. I found out that many schools wanted to be a part of this movement. So far, every host school has been able to get the facilities scheduled for no fee! This helps bring FREE PD to your front door. The host school usually helps with a little planning, but since they are usually very excited to be a part of the process they are happy to help throughout. the planning stages. |  |
Google Form for PResentations
 | Planning for conferences used to be really hard. Lots of paper copies to send out, collect, and finally sort through. Well good thing that isn't the case anymore. With Google Forms you can easily use your state association contacts to send an email to, with a link to a Google Form, where registrants can sign up and even decide to present. All the information from the Google Form goes into a Google Sheet and it's very easy to sort through and organize. Within minutes you can see how many registered for the event, what people want to learn about, what grade level they teach, who wants to present, and what they want to present on. Having this information at your fingertips makes for planning an event a breeze! Click here to see a sample Google Form I use. |
Create a Schedule
 | Google Forms and Google Sheets are an amazing tool and awesome time saver. Now to start building a schedule, I take the information off the Google Form and copy and paste it into another sheet on the Google Sheet. This is a simplistic way to see the schedule come together. I say on top of this by changing my notification settings on the Google Sheet, so I get an email every time someone submits the Google Form. Now a couple of days before I kick off the workshop I build a schedule as a workshop flyer with Google Docs. See a sample below. |
Continuing education Credits
Some districts have teachers documents all the continuing education credit hours for the year. Some are mandatory and some can bump you up on the pay scale. Most everyone needs something or would like a certificate for their educational portfolio that use Danielson's domains. Offering attendees a certificate of completion is a great way to get educators there as well. It's hard to beat FREE PD, educational credits, friendships, and great learning in a relaxed atmosphere. Check out the certificate of complete I have created below.
Repeat
The best part of the model is that it is easy to make happen and continue to repeat. I'm looking to get a few more people on board to help with the process, but it has been very easy for me to run a years worth of workshops every other month, without any other help. I do love the leadership opportunities it presents. From the leadership standpoint of the host school showcasing your school and offering PD for your staff. Letting individuals learn and present to their peers in a very relaxed atmosphere. I hope it helps them consider presenting at a state level as well. The connections made have been awesome and the response has been overwhelmingly been outstanding. I would love to hear your thoughts about this model and I would love to get this model going in many other states. I hope to get you on board and give you a chance to be a leader and cultivate more leaders in a grassroots effort!
RSS Feed