At the recent CPD Network event, Iain White and Ian McCracken, head teacher and learning resources manager respectively, of Govan High School shared their journey from school library to learning resources centre. During the short talk, I was grateful to Douglas Blane of the Times Ed who contributed this interesting article on Govan High’s school to Core Skills via Twitter.

I was very pleased to do a Hot Seat for the CPDStepin community earlier this week, and really enjoyed talking to those who logged in. It was a small number, but the quality was immense!

From that conversation, it seems there is a problem for many supply/unemployed teachers in accessing support for their Professional Review and Development.  In an ideal world this should be part of an evolving relationship based on good personal knowledge of the teacher’s qualities, skills and priorities. This of course is very difficult when you are offered a number of short contracts in a wide range of schools.

So, if you are in this situation, what can you do?

• “Own” the problem yourself. It is very unlikely that anyone will knock on your door offering PRD, so you’re going to have to try to find ways to track it down yourself
• Do your best to identify a “host” school – somewhere you will be welcomed by the staff and given permission to join in school activities such as In-Service etc.  Use personal contacts, old college friends, long-lost relatives. If this doesn’t work, then contact your authority CPD manager and ask if they can help. Details of who these managers are can be found on CPDScotland.
• If this strategy works, you may still have a problem finding someone in the school who will give the necessary time commitment to support your professional learning. You might start with the  Probation Manager, or any colleague who you find has coaching experience.
• If none of these strategies work, don’t give up. Get together with a local colleague on CPDStepin, and arrange some peer review.

If you have any other strategies that have worked for you, please share them on CPDStepin!

There is more information on CPD for Supply/Unemployed teachers in the guidance issued by the team last year.

The “On Our Doorstep” event on the 17 March at Stirling Management Centre provided an opportunity for 37 colleagues to reflect on the potential of partners  in providing CPD for all teachers from sources which may previously have not been  seen as relevant unless working in specialist services.
The presentation from the independent sector outlined their model of CPD and partnership working ; the school library service was profiled as a  source of collaborative working in addressing , for example , literacy across the curriculum; psychological services was presented as another viable resource for all teachers , particularly highlighting the source of reference materials available on line ; a CD Rom produced by Social Work  Services for We Can & Must Do Better for Looked After Children is full of information and suggestions on how to deal with a range of issues which are not unique to children who are looked after; guidance being finalised by the Allied Health Professionals in partnership with Education rehearses examples of collaborative working in schools which has relevance for all staff.

The information and approaches suggested by the contributors has relevance to all the key agendas impacting on the profession – CfE : GIRFEC & ASL. We would encourage colleagues to explore these avenues which provides teachers with independent access to CPD as well as providing focus for collegiate discussion.

“Our analysis reveals three important findings:

• the negligible impact of school policy on the work of the teachers
• the willingness of teachers to utilize appropriate expertise, regardless of the source of that expertise
• and the manner in which these teachers have developed a community in which teaching practices, both individual and corporate, can be discussed and critiqued.

The clear implication of these findings is that it is teachers, working within the department and wider science education community, who were making the conceptual change from professional development to professional learning.”

This research is also featured in the most recent research round-up from LTScotland, which this month also includes CPD-related research into CPD in ICT for educators in England and an evaluation of the Chartered Teacher Pilot in Wales.

Colleagues, 25 in total, were based across 2 sites, Lochside Educational Centre and Langholm Academy. The link was made using a videoconferencing  technology (PolyCom I think) which is currently being rolled out across many local schools. It seemed to cope remarkably well with a fast-moving Prezi and my singing!

The focus of the CPD sessions was largely on CPDReflect as a Swiss army-knife for PRD but we managed to maraude through CPDFind, Twitter, Teachmeets, CPDShorts and discussion on the types and sources of CPD. Dumfries and Galloway use an online CPD catalogue (CPD Solutions)

It was heartening to arrive and find that all of the colleagues had Glow user IDs which allowed me to eschew my usual “here’s the link to the CPDLinks blogpost”. Instead we were able to build, on the fly, a Glow page which hosts our follow-up activities. The event started with Glow and will continue on Glow as I hope to be able to keep in touch with the impact of the session and offer ongoing support through the Glow site we built.

There has been some recent discussion about the usability of Glow. You may have noticed the recent changes in Glow’s interface at national level (see the National Site) or may have been following Andrew Brown’s initiated ‘Glowbetter’ work. While navigation through Glow might be a bit daunting, one of its saving graces for me has always been its ‘hyperlinkability’. It means if you put a resource on Glow, you can copy the shortcut and publish that shortcut anywhere you like, ie add a bit of Glow, or +glow it!

What does this mean? For CPD, +glow usually means ‘now with added collegiality!’. For example, I might recommend a CPD thought-piece (eg Temple Grandin’s TED TV talk – The World needs all kinds of minds). The problem with this approach is it’s an open loop – there is no feedback. I have no idea who follows the link, or what they think about it, or what one thing might they change in their practice as a result of watching and reflecting on the video. But more importantly, numerous colleagues from all over Scotland may be accessing the same video and not realising they have something in common, or know of better examples, or have CPD resources to support teachers of autistic students and so on.

I like the analogy of building escalators not just stairs. By putting that same video onto Glow and asking colleagues to ‘sign up’ you turn a stair into an escalator. Participants get to see the video and also get an instant snapshot of interested colleagues from around Scotland. They can start (or contribute to) a discussion and share practice collegiately.

Try the Temple Grandin +glow version by following the link from CPDFind. Of course, you will need a Glow password for this version.

We have been developing these +glow CPDShort thought-pieces since the turn of the year. A thought-piece doesn’t need to be a video. It could be a discussion paper, an example of student work, a vox pop, results of a survey, etc.

Furthermore, +glow doesn’t just stop at thought-pieces. In future posts I will look at how colleagues +glow lots of different types of CPD; newsletters, face to face events, skills training and more.

Go on, if you are on Glow, start building escalators instead of stairs. You rarely see an escalator marked ‘Out of Order’.  The worst that can happen when you build an escalator is that folk use it as a stair.

So, +glow those thought-pieces and send me a link!

image courtesy of victoriapeckham on Flickr

All of this week I have been struck by how Glow has enhanced the various CPD events; Co-create, Building Champions and East Ayrshire workshop.  Each of the events had its own Glow group where all sorts of things happen before, during and after the event; agenda, introductions, sharing of links and resources, picture records, discussions, treasure hunts, challenges and pledges to improve practice.

This month, I hope to write a series of blog posts about ‘+glowing’ CPD opportunities. It would be great to showcase examples from your CPD. If Glow has featured in your CPD event, please let me know!

We also looked at the structure for local authority CPD that is under development by Fiona Taylor and her team in South Ayrshire and were impressed by its simple but powerful cycle; reflect-identify-practice-impact. Pam will be hosting a session in April where establishment-based CPD leaders will be invited to help us build the online CPD provision for East Ayrshire – just like that!

Neil in the meantime was supporting Audrey Brotherston of the CfE team to develop a simple front-end to national and local CPD materials for Curriculum for Excellence.

On Tuesday, I was invited by Julia Fenby to talk about CPDFind to the participants in the Co-Create project. This project is a collaboration between Scottish Arts and LTScotland’s Glow team. I was there to persuade them of the value of sharing on CPDFind the rich CPD that will no doubt ensue. One of the organisations, TAG Theatre Company, is already a registered provider and I look forward to a few more joining!

Apart from a couple of creative diversions to play CPD Fortunes and sing the CPDFind song, “Just Google CPDFind” you can see much of my contribution on my Prezi site.