One of the lessons learned by the New York City Department of Education was that the pandemic and subsequent hybrid model of learning required a new model for professional learning. According to Rahesha Amon, Senior Executive Director for Leadership and Professional Learning at New York City Department of Education, “We've coined this term, maximizing professional learning, but it was really pivoting in COVID to ensure that we were thinking about professional learning in this blended space, delivering it to all of our talent groups. And for us, that is assistant principals, principals, deputy superintendent superintendents, and their teams, borough office and central. And just so that you're aware we have over 1600 principals here. So, in alignment with our chancellor’s priority of developing people, we have worked to strengthen the internal leadership capacity of our teams through this blended hybrid model of professional learning. So while we were anchored in our leadership standards during pre-COVID, we really made a quick shift in thinking about how best to serve adult learners. And we lifted our ISTI standards for leaders and focused a great deal on equity and the advocacy of the adult learner.”
With a system so large, the key is to help the facilitators explained Nakia Haskins, Leadership Development Coach at New York City Department of Education. “With maximizing learning, we try to help the facilitators because our system is so large. So, the first phase is identifying your goals and objectives. Phase two is designing self-assessment, execute, and then you evaluate, and then there's a quality assurance because you are the master of your content, but we wanted to make sure that there was a structured way that professional learning was being shared within the entire system. So, we have an arc of learning, but it's really about asking, what are the points that you need to get across to your audience on said topic for the year, and then putting those in place and identifying the number of meetings or sessions as well as the type of sessions and models that you may choose to use to deliver that information. We went from an all, in-person or mainly in-person environment to a virtual environment. And so that was a shift for all adults. And then in phase two, we had to decide on the design and do a self-assessment. The design really was what type of information you were trying to get across to the talent group. Is it just for information? Is it something that is interactive that they then need to return back to their schools, or their district, or their borough? And, what's the best methodology to get that information across?”
You’ll enjoy this fast-moving, action-packed discussion from the experts in New York, and you’ll find much to take back to your own school or district.
