It’s been amazing to see how the concept of an online community talking about quality CPD has grown so quickly from a thread started by @greeborunner and developed into the first #edCPDchat last week. I’m really proud to have been a part of this alongside Zoe and also colleagues at the Teacher Development Trust (David Weston, Kathryn Morgan, Maria Cunningham and Michelle Barker).
That there was so much engagement in last week’s chat is a testament to those who care about the development of their staff and are actively reflecting on how to give staff the best deal in CPD going forwards. Below is a summary of some of the key ideas from last week’s chat.
Q1: Planning for 2020-21
The first question asked us to consider the contingencies we’d likely need to consider for the coming academic year, so several responses inevitably centred around the possibility of local lockdowns and blended/remote learning. @EnserMark highlighted how we need to ensure we’re not ‘caught by surprise’ this time by training staff on what makes effective remote teaching and learning. We then discussed how this might overlap with classroom pedagogy (so the CPD had a life beyond a lockdown scenario), though Mark highlighted that we need to ensure that staff don’t just replicate classroom teaching on a remote platform (possibly by highlighting the differences between classroom learning and remote learning).
The impact of social distancing on the delivery of CPD was brought up by @robertkelly95, as he shared how his school are moving to CPD delivery in small teams rather than all staff training together. He explained how this could mean CPD is more tailored to these groups. I can definitely see this, as it would enable more subject-specific CPD if in subject groups- something we’re pursuing in my school by having a whole-school virtual T&L briefing that’s followed by a subject-specific session in department groups.
The ways in which technology enable us to share and celebrate expertise was also mentioned by Robert, as he mentioned how it could be used to celebrate expertise across the whole school. Others also shared how they’d done this last year through formats such as a T&L newsletter (@PearceMrs) and a ‘Team’ on Microsoft Teams that had different channels for different strands of CPD (@CeriBoyle).
The content we choose for CPD was also a factor for next year’s planning that @steven_berryman mentioned, in both supporting the bespoke needs of our staff and also not overwhelming them (a sentiment shared by @teacherhead and @greeborunner in tweets they posted as schools returned this week).
Q2: Learnings from Lockdown
Unsurprisingly, many of us again shared how learning more about online learning (both in terms of pedagogy and technology) will impact CPD for the coming months, so that we are prepared for the potential of blended/remote learning.
However, the growth of remote CPD options for teachers was also flagged as an opportunity to exploit by @EnserMark, who mentioned the high quality of online learning available to staff during lockdown (a view I share after attending various webinars, watching the ResearchEdHome videos and attending the Team English online conference). Mark also noted how it meant teachers were interacting more on virtual platforms, opening up international discussions and CPD.
The benefit of remote CPD is not lost on me, as living in the bucolic East Riding of Yorkshire means that attending conferences/CPD in most major cities can be tricky; I’m definitely hoping for some movement of training online to support with this. Part-time staff would also find this more useful, as @CeriBoyle noted how on-demand CPD means that it’s more flexible around part-timers and those with other commitments.
Q3: Current CPD Priorities
When it comes to the current priorities, the reoccurring theme of remote learning was prominent again, as many of us shared the need to train staff on effective remote learning. I particularly liked the idea from @teach_music_ldn, who is using ‘teaching trios’ for peer observations from September and plans on using these groups to support remote learning CPD (with the potential for moving the peer observations to drop-ins on online sessions if remote CPD is used). I think this would be a great way of ensuring that staff still get to benefit from feedback on their teaching if we do have a local lockdown (though it will be important to have the right culture in place so that it does not get perceived as a process for ‘checking up’ on staff).
There were also contributions from those who are planning to mitigate the impact of students having been away from school for so long, with @lcgeography mentioning the importance of metacognitive strategies and @robertkelly95 highlighting how giving staff clear CPD on behaviour management/expectations will be important as we return.
My Plans
Although it was a hectic 30 minutes keeping up with so many responses, I feel that last Wednesday definitely gave me a lot of important thoughts for the CPD I plan. It’s certainly made me consider how I can make the most of online tools to build CPD across the different English teachers in my trust, as well as the potential for peer observation to continue if we move to remote learning (as this is a key feature of my department’s CPD that I mentioned in my last blog).
Thanks to all of the contributors to last week’s chat, and sorry if I didn’t mention you directly- there were so many brilliant tweets to choose from!
#edCPDchat runs every Wednesday at 7:30pm. Details of upcoming topics can be found at the @edCPDchat account.
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