Professional Learning Goals

• Highlighted and discussed exemplary practice of the use of ICT in the English/language arts classroom
• Included more classroom teachers in our meetings to broaden our membership, especially from school boards in which we do not currently have members (we would encourage teachers from all panels to present)
• Provided an opportunity for newer teachers to reflect on and present their technology-based teaching and learning strategies to colleagues
• Participants  coached or guided through the process of creating a presentation for a professional audience by a member of our executive, thereby supporting teacher leadership
• Engaged colleagues/members in discussion about the effective use of technology in the classroom
• Provided quality professional learning to members on effective pedagogy and ICT in the English/language arts classroom

Activities and Resources

• Rather than use a broad “call to presenters,” we had executive members (present and past) reach out to teachers in their boards who were using exemplary practice (this allowed for “quality” control)
• General inquiries from website contact form garnered some interest, but from people outside of our target audience (e.g., CEGEP teacher in Northern Quebec)
• Presenters asked to reflect on their practice to answer the inquiry questions:
  • How does your use of ICT in the classroom enhance your teaching and student learning of English/language arts?
  • What evidence from your students indicates that deep learning is taking place while using ICT?
• After the presentations, the audience discussed how they could use the strategies in their own classrooms

Unexpected Challenges

• Cancelled fall meeting due to low enrolment; lost traction and had great difficulty rescheduling
• Website helpful in creating interest, but in some cases, no followup (group in Waterloo area more interested in running their own event with some funding from us rather than participating in our workshop) or people who contacted us didn’t meet the target audience (CEGEP teacher from Northern Quebec who teaches English as a Second Language – we exchanged a number of emails before she indicated she taught in Quebec; I believed she was in Northern Ontario)
• Most presenters from secondary panel – need to expand to include more elementary teachers in future
• Project leader off work for Semester 2 after a concussion; this significantly derailed the project

Enhancing Student Learning and Development

Always a good practice to reflect on one’s learning: presenters asked to reflect on their practice to answer the inquiry questions:

• How does your use of ICT in the classroom enhance your teaching and student learning of English/language arts?
• What evidence from your students indicates that deep learning is taking place while using ICT?

After the presentations, the audience discussed how they could use the strategies in their own classrooms

Our hope is that other members will take some of these practices into their own classroom, thus enhancing student learning.

Sharing

• The presentations (slideshows or links to the technology tools, etc.) will be shared with members of ELAN on our website
• We would be willing to share our learning with other subject associations at an OTF meeting

Project Evaluation

• We continue to reach out to engage new members from school boards not currently in ELAN and see an increase in memberships from classroom teachers; this will continue to be a goal moving forward
• We did not have a formal mentoring process as hoped. Disappointing response to the fall meeting failed to attract people to ELAN/the project.
• Some great exemplary practices will be shared (this conclusion is based on the agenda for our meeting on Friday, June 2); hopefully some will translate to the classroom. Discussion/evaluations after the presentations will provide excellent feedback to the executive.
• Sharing of effective pedagogy and ICT – feedback from participants at meetings would indicate if the audience found the presentations useful for their practice. Participants will receive an exit slip/survey.
• A followup survey with members would check to see if the practice was integrated into classrooms. We should be able to see if people are accessing information on the website.