Winter weather woes can be cumbersome in the education world. Cancellations and delays mean reworked lesson plans (multiple times), adjusted schedules, and a multitude of other headaches. The advent of eLearning Days alleviated some of the stress caused by canceled classes, and we have the option of asynchronous days. However, our small, rural district faces challenges with synchronous eLearning days, so we’ve yet to go down that path. So how do we leverage snow day cancellations? We have “Snow” Day Professional Development Days!
When a snow day is called, our students get to sleep in and play in the snow, and our teachers do PD in their PJs from the comfort of home. Canvas allows us to deliver these learning options to our teachers - and at the end of the year, these three days do not have to be made up.
Why We Needed a Different Snow-Day Model
In the post-Covid world, our community has concerns about eLearning days. We have very rural areas that don't have access to wifi and some of our infrastructure doesn’t support multiple devices participating in online classes. Interestingly, we will have some years when inclement weather cancellations aren’t necessary, then other years like this one, where we’ve already missed nine school days, and there is still a lot of winter ahead of us!
For context, in my state, we have various options - asynchronous, synchronous, and approved waiver days. Due to our daily schedule, our district was able to apply for a waiver that allows us to leverage two days for in-person and three “snow” days per school year for professional learning.
Planning the Snow Day PD
One of our district’s long-standing challenges was dedicated professional learning time for our staff. This waiver opportunity seemed like an opportunity to solve two problems with one solution. When our district applied for the waiver, we had to outline the goals and topics we would center the professional learning around. To identify these goals, we brought a lot of stakeholders to the table - district and building admin, curriculum, coaches, and teachers. Together, we were able to identify the needs of our staff aligned to state initiatives and district goals. Each day, teachers are asked to complete the equivalent of six hours of work. Five of the hours would be focused on curriculum and pedagogy, with the final hour designated for annual mandatory training in bloodborne pathogens, seizures, Title IX, etc. There were no set hours for the PD - learning could be completed at any point in the day.
Tools & Platforms
As a Technology Instructional Specialist, I was tasked with outlining and building the learning. The tools central to our plan were Canvas, the Indiana Learning Lab, and Safe Schools. The biggest challenge is to provide learning that meets the needs of a wide variety of staff groups. Initially, the days were designed to be asynchronous to allow full flexibility for staff members to complete the learning as they were able to on the specific day. However, in year two, we incorporated a reflection of learning and offered a couple of live options that were very well received. The 25-26 school year is our third year with this plan, and we continue to adapt and evolve.
Based on feedback from staff after last year’s days, we leaned a little less on the Learning Lab and built more content from scratch, we added an application component for most of the learning, included at least three synchronous opportunities daily, and incorporated additional third-party groups. We leaned on some teacher leaders in our district to “share their shine” and help lead some of the live sessions. Our Canvas course remained the central hub of it all.
Choice has always been an essential component of the learning opportunities, but this year we set about incorporating elements of Universal Design for Learning and sprinkling in the ISTE Standards for Students throughout the course. The goal was to model best practices that we ask staff to utilize in their classrooms. (We also set the class up to model best practice use of our district-wide course templates.) There was choice in topics to study, choice of learning content within modules, and, finally, choice in how staff demonstrated their learning.
Implementation & Feedback
We have one district-wide course with a section for each building. Building-level administrators are coached to review the staff learning and provide feedback. An additional win has been our administrators’ expanded use and understanding of Canvas Speedgrader, Feedback, and Gradebook. Administrators also serve as the first point of contact for staff members in their section to address any challenges with connectivity, access, etc. This helps allow for streamlined troubleshooting and communication since the primary course designer (one person) would be supporting 16 administrators and 300+ teachers.
The Canvas course allows us to collect the feedback we need from the day to report to the state as needed, measure student engagement, and to collect feedback about the learning experiences. Administrators were fantastic about communicating with their staff and also back to me so I could make adjustments to modules as needed. Informal teacher feedback was largely very positive. Specifically, one staff member described it as “refreshing and relevant” and said she appreciated the opportunity and time to build on the learning. Other staff members expressed frustration with the content or navigating Canvas. Others have already offered to facilitate live learning options next year. We will conduct a formal survey of staff to gather feedback to guide planning for the 26-27 school year.
Feedback
We recognize that no PD model is going to be perfect and we’re always going to have some negative feedback, but this model has met our needs thus far. I appreciate that our district’s leadership team listens to multiple stakeholders, consistently evaluates and makes edits to our plan, and has resolutely worked to provide this opportunity for our staff members. It is an incredible amount of work, collaboration, and organization. However, the addition of professional learning opportunities for our staff that also allows us to avoid make-up days adds up to multiple wins for our staff, students, and community.
The need for meaningful professional learning opportunities is always going to be there, but the opportunities are often scarce. The process is complex, and the work is long, but the rewards are great. Does your district have unique approaches to professional learning or student engagement on these days? I’d love to hear from you - what’s working in your schools?
