Story Snapshot
District : Chicago Public Schools
State : Illinois
Level : P-12
District Enrollment : 40,001+ students
Community Type : Urban
Related Tags : professional learning, strategic planning
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#Playdate at Professional Development
Chicago Public Schools is the third largest school district in the US with over 500 schools and over 300,000 students. 86% of those students are economically disadvantaged. This event started in CPS and has grown internationally.
The Challenge
It is difficult for teachers to find time to attend fulfilling conferences or professional development events. When they do,, they are usually discussing great pedagogy by using the worst pedagogy – sit and get. Meeting new educators and discussing the good gospel that is innovative technology use is highly valued. They learn about a myriad of new tools, websites, tricks and apps at these conferences only to go back to the “real world” and have little to no time to ever master or even simply explore any of it. Conference takeaways usually end on up on a task list of “think I wish I had time to figure out”.
The Solution
Thus the idea of #PLAYDATE was born – People Learning and Asking Y: Digital Age Teacher Exploration. A team of teachers, after attending a conference in Boston, came together to create the idea: Jennie Magiera, Autumn Laidler, Sue Gorman, Anita Huffman and colleagues Carolyn Skibba, Kristin Ziemke and Ben Kovacs. Together they refined the idea to meet some of the unaddressed professional learning needs and leverage best practices seen at other conferences.
This conference is geared towards those who want to actually explore – or play with – different tools and strategies to impact student learning – and not just discuss these concepts. Modeled after an unconference or an EdCamp, the sessions are participant-driven and hands on. However, the big difference is that there are NO lecture style presentations at all. NO Presenters. Period. 100% of the content is learner driven, play-based and hands-on – just like the model of education we hope for our students. At the end there is a share out of learning and take aways – “The Play Off” – and digital content and notes are shared collaboratively with all participants throughout the event.
Additional Resources
From Chicago Public Schools:
From the U.S. Department of Education:
District Point of Contact
Jennie Magiera
Phone: 312-714-4705
Email: magieraj@d62.org
