I am interested in creating a facilitated online professional development model designed to support transformative learning opportunities for early childhood educators interested in deepening their creative thinking, teaching and learning practices. Although models like these do exist, I would like the focus here to be on the personalized learning aspect by creating a semi-open framework capable of being custom-tailored to accommodate the needs, interests, and educational contexts unique to each community of learners. In this sense the aim is to inspire and help inform emergent curriculum that is co-created as part of a relationship-driven, design thinking process, while introducing innovative technologies, methods and pedagogies along the way. I wonder if the potential for innovation will depend on its ability to be flexible and open-ended enough to meet the needs of every learner or learning community, while being structured enough to support a creative pedagogical approach that is somewhat replicable as a professional development prototype.
Some early iterations have included facilitating a dedicated learning community comprised of early childhood educators, who are asked to identify what learning goals they want to focus on for the year. Then, monthly modules are designed to support and follow their emerging needs, interests and understandings through the sharing of innovative pedagogical practices and resources they can learn and draw from; practicum exercises used to provoke their own explorations based on the principles they are learning about (e.g. interactive and meta-cognitive and self-reflective discussion posts and exercises); and online Zoom meetings designed to reflect upon the on-going learning, and enable the sharing of project work with peers.
I am curious what kinds of innovative professional development opportunities the rest of you have experienced, read about, or perhaps envisioned. How were they structured? What made them unique or particularly transformational?
