Our Principles for Online Teacher Professional Learning

• We design accessible experiences with minimal materials
• We give clear and simple directions, and make all directions visible
• We use strategies to increase the number of voices that are heard
• We provide structure to make breakout groups successful

Strategies for applying this principle:

In breakout rooms

• Breakout room share order: Give a clear, fast way to assign who shares first, such as: person with the longest hair, person who woke up earliest, person who ate cheese most recently.

• Breakout room stranger danger: Build in time and give explicit directions for participants to introduce themselves when they get into a breakout room with new people.

• Find more break-out room strategies here.

In whole group discussion

• Taking stack: During whole group discussion, have participants type “stack” in the chat to get in line to speak. You can call on them in order, ensuring everyone who wants to speak gets a turn. Alternatively, you can call on them out of order to prioritize people whose voices haven’t been heard as much. (Be sure to let them know in advance if you plan to go out of order.)

• Six hands: Invite participants to raise their hands to share their thoughts (either physically or with the zoom "reactions"). Instead of calling on the first person to raise their hand, wait until you see 6 hands raised. Then you can call on those 6 people in any order, perhaps prioritizing voices that haven't been heard as much. (You may want to jot down the participants' names as they raise their hands to keep track.)

• Find more group discussion strategies here.

In the chat

• Ample time for chat share: When you invite participants to share thoughts or questions in the chat, give plenty of time to enable everyone to participate, regardless of their typing or reading speed.

• Waterfall chat: When asking participants to share a response in the chat, have them type their response but DON’T hit enter yet. Then when everyone is ready, have them all hit enter at the same time.

Other key strategies

• Use norms or community agreements: Particularly for a group that meets regularly, these help create a culture where everyone feels comfortable and able to learn.

View all these strategies on an interactive padlet, and add your own comments and suggestions:

• We don't lecture, we create experiences
• Teachers get to be learners and participate in model activities
• We learn from teachers

Strategies for applying this principle:

• Learn from each other: Create ways for teachers to share their ideas, wisdom, and experience.  For example, use padlets or jamboards where participants can share their thinking.
• Draw on prior knowledge: Activate participants prior knowledge by asking them to share past experiences with a topic or strategy. This could happen via sharing in the chat, on a padlet or jamboard, or verbally in breakout rooms.
• Hold the stance of a learner, not an expert: Use language like "I've learned about...," "I'm working on...," "I want to get better at...," "I think...," and "I've noticed..."

View all these strategies on an interactive padlet, and add your own comments and suggestions:

• We are realistic about how much we can do in a given amount of time
• We move at a moderate and accessible pace
• We allow time for meaning-making
• We set clear goals focused on useful outcomes, and share them publicly

Strategies to support this principle:

• Start on time, end on time: Start the workshop within 5 minutes of your listed start time, and do not go over time at the end.
• Give ample time to each activity:  You might just need to do fewer things to ensure that each thing can truly be be a good use of time.  Tips:
  • Have clear goals for the session while planning.
  • Use your goals to prioritize and remove things that aren't meeting the goals.
  • Try out activities ahead of time so you know how long they really take.
• Use time checks: Touch bases with participants, especially when they are doing an individual activity like reading or reflection.  For example: "Share in the chat how much more time you would like to work on this."  You can also do this anonymously with a zoom poll.  
• Make break timing visible: During breaks, share your screen with a timer running OR a slide stating the time the break will end.  We often use youtube timers for this, or we use the annotate tool in zoom to add a "time to be back" on the screen.

View all these strategies on an interactive padlet, and add your own comments and suggestions:

• We find and use tools that enhance the learning experience
• We design digital-worthy tasks that make good use of the tools
• We don't introduce too many tech tools or platforms at the same time
• We make time for participants to get comfortable with new tech tools

Strategies to support this principle:

• Practice tech tools: Create a "do-now," community builder, or other low-stakes activity using the same tech tool participants will use later in the workshop.  This lets people get familiar with the tool in a less stressful way.
• Organize all resources and documents in a central place: Google sites is one tool we use for this, but this can also be as simple as a virtual document or slide deck. The important thing is that everything used in the workshop can be found in one place, and that the organization follows the flow of the training or workshop.

Some tools we like:

• Zoom polls: The zoom poll feature is great for getting quick and easy feedback from the whole group, and sharing it with everyone in real time. Because it can be anonymous and doesn't require opening a different app, it's a great way to quickly assess understanding of a concept across the group, and share with the group how that changes over time.
• Padlet is a good tool for participants to share and have virtual conversations (anonymous or not, asynchronous or not). Posts can easily include media (screenshots, uploaded photos or videos, drawings created in the app, etc.). 
• Mentimeter: we use this to gather data from the whole group and share it out (e.g. a word cloud or graph). You can also do this with open-ended questions and longer-form responses.
• Google Jamboard is great for collaborative work and sense-making, whether synchronous or asynchronous, and for sharing and giving peer feedback. Work can be done directly on the jamboard, or uploaded to jamboard slides. Editors of the same jamboard can erase and edit each other's work, so we have found it valuable to introduce some "rules of the road":
  • Always ask before you move or edit anyone's post-its or images
  • Make space and take space: Try not to cover other's additions to the jamboard. You can always add a new slide!
  • Voiceover: When working synchronously, narrate any changes you're making to the board

View all these strategies on an interactive padlet, and add your own comments and suggestions: