THE LEARNING LOOP

It can be challenging to engage in virtual learning experiences, particularly when we are distracted by other professional and personal responsibilities. Reflect on obstacles that have previously stunted your full engagement in virtual professional learning experiences. Consider how to prime yourself and your learning space to engage as deeply as possible in virtual professional learning. Identify personal learning preference(s) and how to leverage this in a virtual space. Explore strategies for remaining engaged during virtual professional learning experiences. Determine systems for extending the learning loop beyond synchronous virtual engagements, including action plans, accountability partners, and check-ins.

The learning landscape continues to shift for both students and adults. Learning management systems, digital badging, and micro-credentials have opened the door for an entirely new world of professional learning. Despite this, many districts/schools have been slow to offer these opportunities to educators because the systems for accountability, implementation, and subsequent growth have not kept pace with the tools themselves. Explore ways to offer personalized professional learning to your staff through podcasts, Twitter and Voxer chats, digital book clubs, blogs, and more. Collaborate on strategies to meet educator needs and provide them with voice and choice in their professional learning while still making progress towards district/school goals. Be ready to stretch your thinking about adult learning - what it is and what it has the potential to become.

Facilitating effective professional learning looks much different in a Zoom room or learning management system than it does in a classroom or auditorium. Examine research-based practices for effective virtual adult learning experiences. Develop an understanding of the concepts of priming, ushering, launching, socially constructing, and extending the learning loop (PULSE) as a framework for designing and facilitating effective virtual professional learning experiences. Reflect on how these concepts can improve the quality of participants’ virtual professional learning design and facilitation.

Whether we are facilitating for student or adult learners, it can be challenging to monitor learner progress, particularly when we are collaborating in virtual space. Share challenges monitoring learner progress in a virtual versus a face-to-face environment. Identify virtual mechanisms for capturing learner growth at multiple depths of understanding. Explore varied approaches for providing learner feedback in virtual spaces. Consider and share digital tools to support monitoring learner progress.

Coaching in a virtual space looks and feels much different than when we are physically seated shoulder to shoulder. Identify the characteristics of powerful conversations, including advancement of an agenda, shared learning, and a stronger relationship. Examine how the principles of great listening (i.e., focusing in a visible way, sorting and compartmentalizing needs and wants, recognizing the feeling as well as the content, and balancing inquiry, advocacy, and judgment) manifest in virtual spaces. Explore the five primary types of powerful conversations. Practice facilitating conversations that actualize strategy.