• UNDERSTAND the role of coaches in guiding educators to integrate technology effectively to support student-centered instruction;
• EXPLORE the potential of digital tools to enhance your Professional Learning Network (PLN) and knowledge base as a coach, as well as facilitate connections with educators worldwide;
• UNDERSTAND and apply frameworks, like the Technological Pedagogical And Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) framework as guides to the best intersection of curricular standards, sound pedagogy choices and technology;
• EXPLORE strategies to support classroom teacher practices that enhance students’ Collaborative work, Communication with multiple audiences, Critical thinking and Creativity (Four C’s);
• DEEPEN your understanding of the elements of Digital Citizenship to coach both educators and students toward digitally safe learning environments and habits;
• EXPERIENCE personalized application of your new learning and job-embedded practice;
• CREATE a Coaching Action Plan* that serves as a scaffold for guiding your colleagues and others toward effective digital learning; and
• CONTRIBUTE to the learning of others who participate in the course.

* Coaching Action Plans are required for those seeking 30 PD hours as opposed to 20 PD hours for course participation.

Unit 1: Stewarding the Future of Digital Learning & Teaching

During this first week, you will further your thinking about the vision for and role of a coaching in helping and supporting educators integrate technology effectively. You will address how to turn that vision into action and begin building your Coaching Action Plan,* which will be revisited each week during the course.

Pathway Focus:

Formulating a vision with clearly communicated expectations

Essential Questions:

• What are the dispositions and skills required to be an effective “coach?”
• What is your current vision of and strengths for coaching?
• How is your role perceived in your school/district? How do you describe your role to others? How does this help or hinder your ability to be seen as a coach?

Unit 2: A 4Cs Perspective on Coaching and Connection

During this unit, you will come prepared to get connected. Consider how you engage others as well as enhance your professional learning through exploration of the 4Cs to support classroom practices that enhance communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.

Pathway Focus:

4Cs strategies to Model with Educators to Build Relationships

Essential Questions:

• What are the digital-age skills (4Cs) and how do they enhance digital-age learning and teaching?
• What does your current personal learning network look like and how can you expand it?
• How do you, as a coach, communicate and facilitate continued learning for those you support?

Unit 3: Exploring Frameworks: Guiding Educators to Enhance and Transform Digital Learning and Teaching

This unit is dedicated to familiarizing you with two frameworks, Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) and Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition (SAMR).

Pathway Focus:

Questioning and Co-planning

Essential Questions:

• How can TPACK and SAMR guide educators to the best intersection of curricular standards, sound pedagogy choices and digital tool selections to directly enhance and support student-centered learning?
• What should you look for when planning or observing technology-infused learning activities?

Unit 4: Coaching Digital Learning Data and Assessments

During this unit, you will explore formative strategies to inform your practice and establish a commitment to innovation through assessment, planning and strategic action.

Pathway Focus:

Reflective Practice and Use of Data

Essential Questions:

• How do you know the educators you support understand how to design and support technology-rich, student centered curriculum and instruction?
• What digital-age assessment tools and data do you use/ are you considering using to inform your coaching practice and why?
• What strategies, frameworks or rubrics will you use as guidance in selecting digital-age tools/resources for instruction and curriculum integration?
• What insights have you gained upon completing the Transformational Coaching Rubric?

Unit 5: Digital Citizenship: Cultivating a Safe and Responsible Digital Culture

You will take a deep dive into understanding and applying the elements of digital citizenship.

Pathway Focus:

Creating Habits of Mind

Essential Questions:

• In your role of supporting and guiding educators, how do you share lessons, develop strategies and, more importantly, model best practices to create responsible and skilled digital citizens?
• How can you create a safe and responsible digital-age culture in your school, district or state?

Unit 6: Accelerating Innovation Studio

This unit presents you with a high-impact opportunity to develop your course of action developed out of the previous units. Participants will construct a manifesto* comprising of their:

• Mission as an “coach”
• Vision for digital-age learning and teaching
• Goal for their instruction and practice
• Plan to share learning with others

* Coaching Action Plans are required for those seeking 3 CEUs as opposed to 2 CEUs for course participation.

Post-Course

Participants will complete an End-of-Course Survey and have the option to request a Certificate of Completion.

• Spend at least 20 hours participating in the course, by verifying that you have participated in the discussions and entered at least 1 original post and 1 reply in each unit, and shared at least three artifacts of participation to your local agency (for example, PowToon, Lino.it, discussion posts, etc., from any activities in Unit 1-5), (worth 20 PD hours); and/or
• Submit your, or your team’s, Coaching Action Plan (worth an additional 10 hours and thus 30 PD hours). A Coaching Action Plan is not required for 20 hours of course credit, but it is highly recommended for a deeper and more complete learning experience.

You can submit the certificate to your local agency with a request for CEUs. Granting of CEUs will be subject to the policies and procedures of your state and local agency. Participants that have completed all course expectations will also receive a digital badge.

Online Professional Learning for Educators at the Friday Institute provides a scalable, accessible and flexible approach that is aligned with the principles of effective professional development. Our approach is grounded in authentic, active and collaborative professional learning activities. Participants will engage in discussion forums to exchange ideas with colleagues, as well as share and synthesize new learning; hear from peers on the ground; apply new learnings to their local context through small projects; and work on their own Coaching Action Plan, developed across all units.

Pathways

Beginning in Unit 2, you will self-select between two distinct pathways for learning…

• Emerging Coaching: This pathway, as part of a starter kit, will focus on impact, opportunity and developing an inquiry coalition to institute a culture of digital-age learning and teaching.
• Innovative Coaching: For those that want to deepen their current capacity, this pathway will help coaches ready to elevate their practice with strategies to remove barriers, celebrate impacts and how to keep learning from evidence and experience.

The approach builds upon the following key concepts:

1. Authentic project-based learning. You will work on your own coaching action plan based upon your interests and the needs of your school or district.
2. Peer supported learning. You will have opportunities to discuss ideas, share strategies and resources, and exchange constructive feedback with other participants in similar roles and schools. You can also participate as a member of a local school or district team.
3. Support for exploration. Activities and guidelines for providing feedback will encourage you and your fellow participants to propose new ideas, look at issues in new ways, consider new approaches and use new digital-age tools, all within a supportive context.
4. Crowdsourcing. The “wisdom of the crowd” will be employed to gather resources, vet ideas, tag and rate materials, and stimulate each participants’ ideas and reflections.
5. Self-directed emergent learning. There is not a fixed path through the course or a fixed curriculum everyone will follow. You will be able to — and are expected to — navigate your own path, consistent with your own goals, through the course’s activities, resources and exchanges, supported and guided by the facilitators, resources and fellow participants.
6. Case study/scenario based approaches. You will address problems of practice, explore and apply new learnings.
7. Anytime, anyplace learning in which educators can engage as their time allows, from anywhere they have web access via a computer, tablet or smartphone. Their personal experience as an online learner can inform participants about the potential of digital learning to improve student engagement and achievement.
8. Multiple voices, so that participants learn about the perspectives of other teachers and administrators along with those of students, researchers and experts in the field rather than from one or two experts who deliver a series of online lectures.

Jaclyn Stevens

Jaclyn Stevens is the interim director and senior research scholar of the Professional Learning and Leading Collaborative at the Friday Institute. In her work, she supports and coaches educators and leaders in adaptive student-centered approaches to provide concrete, quality, purposeful, reflective and on-the-ground personalized learning supported through technology to support all learners. Her mantra is to adapt, not adopt. Jaclyn is currently licensed and certified as an instructional specialist, an instructional technology facilitator, a secondary media arts educator, a secondary language arts educator and holds a special endorsement in computer education. jlbell@ncsu.edu | @jaclynbstevens