Summer Professional Development Ideas

Happy July! I (Nina) hope you’ve had some time to rest and reflect on the school year. I’m home with a baby, so no summer professional development (PD) for me this year, but traditionally summer is the time for me to learn about something new, attend a conference, talk to other teachers, and get new ideas and inspiration. If you had a really rough school year (or just a “regular” school year because teaching is so hard!) and you need time away from teaching however that might look for you, I also completely understand that. 

One other thing to mention is that a lot of professional development is really expensive and it can be hard to get a spot. These two things combined make it inaccessible for so many teachers. As a private school teacher, I’m lucky to work at a school that has a budget for PD and pays for travel, accommodation, meals allowance, etc. We are also permitted to request time off for PD during the school year, which I feel was very difficult when I taught public school. This is key as so much great PD is offered during the school year. Currently, many conferences and workshops are still online, which is great for making them accessible to more teachers as there are no travel costs involved and you don’t have to worry about childcare or pet sitters or anything like that. But after teaching on Zoom, I have a hard time with Zoom workshops. I never want to turn my camera on and I inevitably get distracted unless I am presenting or have some sort of dynamic role.

Free or (relatively) affordable PD options:

Museums often have a lot to offer and they are often free for public school teachers. In DC, between the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, National Endowment for the Humanities, and more, there are a lot of free or stipend-based opportunities. Unfortunately, most of them require advance application, but you can still sign up for a lot of museum based workshops or webinars for free. Special shout out to the National Museum of the American Indian that has really amazing webinars available for free. You can watch previously recorded ones as well. From their site, “Webinars are designed to support education professionals in learning approaches to incorporate more complete narratives about Native American histories, cultures, and contemporary lives into their teaching.” 

Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) has virtual workshops that only cost $15 per participant.

Really Great Reading free! Science of Reading summer training. We are huge supporters of SOR and if you have the energy, any practice with improving our literacy instruction skills is truly one of the key game changers for supporting ALL students. This one is great because it has three levels so you can work your way through the whole program and get tools for a range of ages. 

Newsela has a lot of webinars, many of which include actual teachers as presenters. They are free if you create a free account.

Common Sense Media provides free professional development for teachers. You can also become a Common Sense ambassador or recognized educator.

The IRIS Center (through Peabody College at Vanderbilt University) is offering free PD certificates for educators through December 2022! They offer self-paced and self-guided modules focused on topics related to special education and teaching students who are English language learners (and more!).

Facing History and Ourselves has different PD options including one time workshops, videos of teachers teaching, and webinars or courses. Not all of their options are free, but many are and they offer payment assistance.

Depending on what curricular and instructional tools or programs you/your school or district use in your classroom, many platforms and curricula offer PD and much of it is free or offered by/through certain school districts. I’ve attended workshops for Seesaw, Fundations, Engage NY/Eureka Math, IXL Math, and more. If you have something new you will be working with or want to try next year or want to refresh your skills and learn some new tricks for a tool you’ve been using for some time, summer is a great time to learn more and have time to practice and experiment. I wrote a post about useful virtual tools here. Many of these tools have free teacher training or even programs to become a certified teacher for that platform.

Kristyn Corace shares more ideas here on the Really Good Stuff Blog.

Here are some great resources from Education World.

Waterford compiled a list of 20 free online professional development resources for teachers.

Below are some PD opportunities Gabby and I attended and wrote about in the past. All of them have an attendance fee which our school covered (our school also covered our travel and other costs.) We were also presenting or facilitating at a number of these conferences and were able to travel together, which is definitely more fun! They are sorted by summer or during the school year.

Summer:

The Art of Coaching Teams Institute (I attended this PD as part of my role as the Co-Teaching Facilitator).

NPS Diversity Institute! (Rosetta Lee ran the workshop the year I went and she was, as always, amazing and thought-provoking!)

Responsive Classroom Workshop 

Social Justice Tour to the Dominican Republic!

SEED 2016: Seattle!

SDE Differentiated Instruction Conference! 

School Year:

Presenting at NCTE 

Facilitating at the Asian Educators Alliance Conference 

Presenting at the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference 

Northwest Teachers for Social Justice: Always Worth the Trip! (This conference is so amazing we traveled from DC to the Northwest twice to attend! It is online this year so no travel involved and the conference fees are very reasonable. Find out more here.)

Presenting at the Private Schools for Public Purpose Conference 

Our workshop at the Capitol Area Progressive Schools Conference 

​​Facilitating at the White Privilege Conference

Please share any professional development opportunities you’ve experienced that really stand out. And have a peaceful and restful summer!

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Capital Area Progressive Schools!

Last month, I had the opportunity to present at the Capital Area Progressive Schools (CAPS) Conference! The theme of the conference was Responsive Practice: Diversity, Equity, and Differentiation. This conference takes place every two years and all CAPS members faculty and staff are invited to join. This year, my school had the day off for students so everyone could attend and it seemed like most other schools did so as well. It was so lovely that so many schools were able to do this so we had so many other teachers (and faculty and staff) to meet! Coming from a small school with only one class per grade, it’s always very exciting to have a chance to talk to other 3rd grade teachers.

My (new) co-teacher and I presented our What continent do you think they are from? drawing humans activity that Gabby and I designed as part of our 3rd grade geography curriculum. We use this activity to open our students’ eyes to the reality of the entire world out there (as opposed to only North America and maybe Europe) as well as their internalized biases (and of course, so much more!). We read a description of a human being, ask them to draw this human using only crayons, and then write down what continent they think this person is from.

This was only the second time I’ve done this activity with adults, and really enjoyed the discussion and questions from our audience. We had a smaller group than we anticipated so we were able to open up discussion as we went along and ask people to share out instead of only sharing in a small group. It was fascinating hearing about different thought processes and how, as adults, we become instantly aware of our implicit biases and what it felt like to try to challenge them.

We had a very interesting discussion about application or adaptation of this activity for pre-kindergarten aged students, interdisciplinary or subject specific use in middle school classrooms, and talked about Science applications and generally beginning the dismantling or challenging of stereotypes when starting a new unit of study. At our school, we’ve been fortunate to work closely with the Kindergarten and First Grade teachers who are engaging in social justice work in their classrooms as well, and were responsive to the needs we communicated based on the work we were doing in Fifth Grade, so we shared some of the activities they do as well.

One part of this activity that I really love is asking participants to write down what continent they think someone is from! Many of the adults at our workshop found that they were able to be mindful of their own first instincts around race or gender when drawing humans, but the continent twist surprised them and made them ask: why is it that we always think of Europeans and North Americans? What does this mean for our classrooms and the voices and faces we need to highlight?

Later in the day, I went to a roundtable discussion about continuing diversity, equity, and inclusion work a few years in and how to keep moving after the initial momentum from starting out (as an institution or as staff/faculty at an institution. It was helpful hearing about work at other schools and problems, reactions and possible solutions that have come up.

Some of my other takeaways and valuable reminders included:

• I love the idea of a cultural competency checklist as a place to start with all faculty and staff - it really underscores the idea that we all are commiting to this important work and all have something to bring or work on.

• One school had everyone fill out an inventory detailing who they spend most of their time with, who their friends are, and who they are comfortable with as a concrete way for people to understand why certain spaces might feel more or less natural or customary for them

• One share involved someone explaining that there was a wide disparity of how people were experiencing the school and different ways they tried to make people understand that

• Progressive schools are grounded in relationships so everyone’s experience matters!

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Presenting at NCTE

Late last month, I had the honor of participating on a panel presentation at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual convention. I was sharing details about our beloved storytelling unit on a panel about cultural relevancy, the arts, and student voice! I was lucky to be paired up with an excellent co-presenter (the panel ended up just being the two of us!) and loved sharing details about what still is one of my favorite units to teach.

I was originally slated to be on a panel with four other people, but as it worked out, only two of us were able to present. We were both able to share more details about our work and had more time for questions (which is often my favorite part). Not surprisingly, the highlight of my presentation really was the video of a student performance from our Final Stage show where every single one of our students performed a true story about their life.

Other things I loved presenting about: Anne Thomas, who was our guest speaker/storyteller and introduced the concept of storytelling as a performance with her story, Burden No More, how we used both Story District and StoryCorps as resources, the incredibly valuable tie in to social emotional learning as stories help us both understand ourselves and learn from each other, and how I wish Jacqueline Woodson’s amazing new picture book, The Day You Begin, existed when we were teaching this unit.

I truly loved seeing how the audience responded to my student’s story. I spoke about the bares bones of the unit, why it was transformative, student quotes, and resources and ideas, but the student video was far more powerful than anything I said! I also was asked many great questions about how to use storytelling with preservice teachers and adults in general. There was a lot of engagement with the idea of storytelling as validation of less prominent stories or voices, and connections to other cultures with oral history traditions (especially Native Americans and tribes fighting for state and/or federal recognition).

It was also amazing to be around so many teachers of English (and authors! And readers!)! I enjoyed all the nerdy, literary, and punny shirts and tote bags and just general love for books and authentic literacy opportunities. Thank you to my wonderful co-presenter, our audience, and all the other educators I was lucky enough to meet at NCTE!

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Facilitating at the Asian Educators Alliance Conference

Last week, I was fortunate enough to facilitate a workshop at the Asian Educators Alliance (AsEA) Conference here in Washington, DC! I presented a workshop titled Rebranding Microaggressions: Otherizing and Marginalization at the AsEA Conference in Berkeley, CA in 2016, so it was wonderful to be back and connect with so many amazing educators on the other side of the country (and without even needing to fly anywhere)!

My workshop was titled What Continent Do You Think They Are From: Confronting & Challenging Internalized Stereotypes. I led participants through the drawing humans and guessing what continent they might be from activity that we created for our class as an example of one activity you could use to uncover racial, gender, geographic or other biases. I find that the activity highlights and counteracts internalized stereotypes, assumptions, and bias, and hoped it would provide an introductory point for addressing who is visible and heard in our classrooms and society. Then, I was excited to hear from participants about how the activity is relevant to our/their own experiences, and share ideas and resources for how we try to counteract one-dimensional or limited representation of Asian and Pacific Islander voices in our own communities.

As always, I really enjoyed the discussion as we went through the steps of the drawing humans activity. There were so many excellent questions about the design of the activity. For example, why do we use only crayons? And was the choice of colors of crayons deliberate? How might I have structured the activity differently for younger children? And so many more! It’s also always fascinating to see how differently we all approach the same activity - some people focus on drawing faces, others draw stick figures with props, others try to use the description to guess an actual person and then depict that person (and often write their name). This time around, one of the participants correctly guessed that I was describing Sadiq Khan!

My favorite part, however, is always hearing reflections and reactions. One participant described how she kept thinking of men even though four out of the five people I described were women. Another shared how she tried to think about who would have access to the positions and opportunities I described in different places. I shared how one of my 3rd graders asked, “Why do we only learn about people from North America?” after experiencing this activity and participants reflected on the curricula at their schools and changes they were making or would choose to make if they could.

The conference theme was mobilizing for equity, so I was thrilled to hear from others and garner ideas, inspiration, and support. It is always so enlightening to have time to talk with other teachers and I loved how attendees had traveled from all over the country, worked at many different kinds of schools, worked with students of all ages, and had a variety of roles at their schools, so we really had a variety of perspectives. One aspect of the conference I really appreciated was multiple workshops on leadership roles as representation in administration or positions of power is a key part of mobilizing for equity and advocating for change. I wasn’t able to attend one of those workshops this time around, but I loved the options and appreciate the reminder that representation matters!

Yet another highlight from the conference was reconnecting with Dr. Taharee A. Jackson, who coincidentally had visited our classroom a year ago. She was one of the keynote speakers and told us about her work as a professor of minority and urban education, specifically sharing the results of her research on teacher activists. While there is so much to learn from her (and I can’t wait to read her book that is coming out soon!), I especially took to heart the message that we need to support one another and finding a community of like-minded educators is absolutely ESSENTIAL to keep doing the work we try so hard to do.

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Presenting at the Private Schools for Public Purpose Conference

We had the pleasure of visiting GDS High School and attending the Private Schools for Public Purpose (PSPP) conference! We presented some experiential learning activities we do in our 5th grade classroom (two of our favorites, our drawing activity and pom pom simulation, and some new ones like our factory simulation in our Econ 101 unit!), along with how we talk about race and socio-economic status in our classroom. We were privileged to spend our workshop time with thoughtful, justice-oriented educators.

Unlike some other presentations we have done, this space was small and intimate, and we loved getting to hear from everyone and have a dynamic discussion. We heard all about affinity groups, equity work, and innovative programming at other schools.

Our trusty bin of workshop supplies: pom poms, crayons, handouts, and more!

This workshop with awesome, critical thinking educators has left us thinking about:

• How we can avoid students trying to have the “right” answer during our discussion our activity, but not transferring that to their actions outside of the classroom?

• Why do adults consistently ask if we are afraid the white kids will “feel bad”?

  • How do we continue to address the root of this question verbally and through the work we do with students, families, and fellow educators?

• What pushback do we expect from adults?

• The importance of sitting in the discomfort of honest investigation/realization- for example, one question brought up to us by a couple educators in the room was: What do we do with students repeatedly saying they feel "lucky" after an experiential activity or being "grateful" for their circumstances. What does that mean? How do we continue to push them to go beyond the idea of feeling lucky and think more about implications and the structures in place?

• The importance of teaching that race is a construct - in student’s words it means everything and nothing - it’s confusing! Ignoring it won’t make it go away!

Overall thoughts and feelings: It is empowering and rejuvenating to connect with fellow educators at conferences and discuss the complexities of social justice education. While our students were upset (and indignant!) that we would both be gone for the day, they were excited to hear we would be putting adults through some simulations and wanted to know if they get “just as mad” and "how would grown ups act doing the work we do?!" We assured them that adults have even stronger reactions and that adults also have to step up and do this work. They wholeheartedly agreed.

Sending gratitude to everyone we met at PSPP-- Onwards!

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