Webinar = Blog Hiatus

March 4, 2017 (FINALLY posted April 28, 2017)

      So when Dan Meyer calls you out for not blogging saying "your a blog has gone dormant", you decide that it's time to pick it up again :-) 

 I have been having trouble deciding what to blog about. In my position (Instructional Coach aka. TOSA) I feel like if I'm not careful, I will start to complain which is unprofessional. I was having trouble balancing this feeling with talking about what is meaningful to me. 

However, just because my blog has been silent, doesn't mean I haven't been busy! Over the past few months I had the opportunity to do a webinar through West Ed and the California Department of Education. The webinar series was called "Speaking and Listening" and I was asked to present with a focus on mathematics. My great friend, Meg Rowe (Arithmetallk) joined me in this endeavor and it was an amazing experience. Here is the archive: Calculating the Gift of Gab for Literacy in Secondary Math Classrooms. I wasn't sure what I would learn when I embarked on this webinar and I didn't think anyone would care to listen to me. I decided to approach it like a blog where even if no one listened, I would grow, and I did!. 

Through this webinar, I learned how to make a very efficient and engaging presentation without the ability to be in the room with my attendees. It was so interesting to have to plan without the ability to read the room. I didn't realize how much I rely on my intuition of how people are acting and responding as I teach, and add activities or discussions as needed.

As we created this presentation we had to utilize research of when people lose interest and find opportunities we could use to build interest and maintain our participation.

 We incorporated polls and quickwrites with the audience and asked for information that the audience may have already used. When working with adults, its important to tap the resurces of the room. This deliberate planning helped us organize and intentionally plan our discussions, as well as anticipate other responses (Orchestrating Discussions by Peg Smith, et al). It was a great connection to Peg Smith's article about anticipating, except this time we had one shot! 

Our planning and preparation took roughly four months. We met with the West Ed people several times (via phone conference) to refine our goals as presenters and make sure that we had interactive elements and meaningful discussions to keep our audience engaged.

 In the end we spoke to more than 70 people in at least three different countries around the world. It was so exciting because I thought I would feel like I was in a room talking to myself but in reality people really did participate and have amazing things to share with their ideas. I even had several people email me for additional activities and ideas based on what they learned in the webinar. EXCITING!

In the end I grew immensley as a person as well as an educator. It was so helpful to collaborate and bounce ideas off one another which we practiced our presentation several times. I can't imagine going through this level of intentional planning every single day as a classroom teacher, but the power  in truly refining our product was immeasurable. Another big takeaway was making sure our goals were clear and reinforced throughout our presentation. Many times our goals as presenters are obvious to us and we don't take the time to articulate what them to our audience. The practice of writing down explicit goals made the goals tangible and helped frame decision making during planning. Intentional planning is key. Discovering it for myself was so much more meaningful than being told to do it. Weird! ;)