What needs to be done

More feedback. Have spoken to just about all the leaders and the feedback has been good.
So what is next?
The general outline of the new few meetings will go something like this:

Week 5 - finalise and submit the Professional Learning Plans
Week 10 - Plans should have been approved and teachers now discuss how they will implement plans
Term 2 - usually literature review and the start of action research.
Term 3 - refinement of the plan and further action research.
Term4 - reflection on the year and writing up the results; presentation to their peers.

So far, so good. However that is another 11 hours of time that needs to be used productively.
So...what scaffolding needs to be developed?

We need to come up with:

• Sources of professional reading - the librarians are working on this. I would like to teachers to join a Diigo group for the school which could be another source of reading. Need to be creative here.
  
• A professional reading template so that people can have some structure for their literature reviews.
  
• Ideas for using the $600 available for every teacher. What is included and what isn't. e.g. what about buying an iPad?
• Keeping in touch with professional development (hate those words!) opportunities that are relevant to the plans.
• A summary of the main areas that people are going to research so that we can see commonalities and make links between people and their plans.
• Action research. What is it? What is a worthwhile process? I have some AGQTP resources on this.
  
• Getting baseline data that is worthwhile. What are the sources for this?
  
• Methods of reflecting on the year's work.
• Ways to report - not just written.
• The final showcase. I am currently thinking about have all the presentations available online or in poster form in the Study Hall. Then have two by four sessions where teachers who have been chosen by their team will present their work. Other teachers will opt to go to one of the four sessions. We then have a break. During the break we have morning tea in the Study Hall and people can chat but also view the presentations of others as posters or online.
  It is important that the presentations be active - not just a 45 minute lecture.

Much to think about. Interesting that blogging is a way to start getting stuff out of your brain.

Note for next year: the Australian Government is implementing a set of teacher standards at four levels: graduate, proficient, highly accomplished, lead. It would be good to provide a framework for linking the activities that teachers are doing to those standards. Maybe we could use the standards to assess the Professional Learning plans??? ie what areas should teachers address in those plans. Hmmmm....