Professional Development Training

Description

This is a rendering of a Social Studies Skills Focus micro-learning. In an effort to help bridge learner achievement gaps, I designed a series of micro-learnings to support my campus social studies department in designing intentional learning opportunities focused on the development of social studies skills in grades 6-8.

Objective

Promote learner equity by providing teachers the support and opportunity to create intentional learning opportunities of critical thinking skills in all social studies classrooms.

The Process

As the campus Social Studies Department Chair, I analyzed campus STAAR and district cumulative assessments, which resulted in identifying disparities of learner achievement between grade levels and teams. As a result, a department goal was defined: Design intentional learning opportunities of critical thinking skills in all social studies classrooms.

Critical thinking skills are defined as: apply chronology through sequencing; identify cause-and-effect relationships; draw inferences and conclusions; identify different points of view; compare and contrast a topic; categorize content as political, economic, geographic, or social; and summarization.

Each critical thinking skill served as a topic for a micro-learning. Each micro-learning followed the following development phase steps:

1. Research, organize, and curate teaching resources

2. Design micro-learning content using Google Slides

3. Review content

4. Make revisions

After each sprint of development, I reflected upon the project. I identified what went well, what went wrong, and what could be improved. For example, teachers need time to design learning opportunities for students. In an effort to carry out the department objectives and support teachers, I embedded design time and presented teachers with the resources they needed to design the learning opportunity for their classrooms.

These micro-learnings were presented throughout the year during department meetings.

The Result

Content tailored to reflect the data and needs of our learners, as well as resources to support department teachers with designing intentional learning opportunities.