ISTE SIGIVC FORUM 2007: Professional Development: The Collaboration Experience
Organizational OverviewThe North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics – Distance Learning Department (NCSSM-DL) is a state-funded provider of educational programming to students and educators utilizing cutting-edge technologies, both synchronous and asynchronous. The programming started in 1992 and has morphed into a USDLA award-winning model for distance learning—North Carolina’s major provider of videoconference programming to the K-12 community.
Challenge
NCSSM-DL provides statewide outreach with upper-level curriculum to high schoolers, classroom enrichment programming on a broad range of topics to K-12 students and teachers, as well as professional development programming to K-12 teachers. It provides close to 500 hours of videoconference programming per month.
Solution
The Collaboration Experience is a professional development program based upon a partnership between a NCSSM master teacher and a public high school teacher at a distant site in North Carolina, designed to provide mentorship support. This professional growth model is particularly effective for educators who are new to their field or who are teaching out of field, or for those who are interested in broadening their use of technology and pedagogy. It is designed for distant-site teachers to observe and experience discovery-based learning, new approaches to introducing units/topics, different approaches to teaching difficult topics, and demonstrations of labs and other types of learning activities.
The Collaboration Experience allows for ongoing communication between the NCSSM teacher and the distant site teacher. The first step in the process is for both teachers to establish the partnership and define the structure of the collaboration. Initially, the teachers will get to know each other by sharing information and the nature of each other’s tasks and responsibilities. The schedule and mode of communication is agreed upon, as well as a framework for curriculum planning and logistics. Generally, planning is conducted on a weekly basis, and the NCSSM teacher will frequently provide a lesson via videoconferencing to the class. A plan for sharing objective feedback is developed to facilitate the experience.
It is important to realize that the collaboration is not designed to evaluate anyone or anything. Rather, it is designed to evaluate the effect of the experience itself. It is a chance for a mentorship to be developed that provides opportunity to share and discuss best practices, resources, and pedagogy. Feedback and reflection are a basis for the ongoing planning and communication between the teachers and with the students. The desired outcome is for the distant site teacher to gain insight into effective teaching strategies, develop further understanding of pedagogy, and a wealth of resources to utilize and incorporate into his/her own teaching methods.
Contact Information
Darlene Haught, Dean
Distance Learning Technologies
NC School of Science and Mathematics
PO Box 2418
Durham, NC 27715
919-416-2877
haught@ncssm.edu