Professional Learning Experience Guide

Clearly define your purpose for implementing a maker professional learning experience. To guide the design, consider why you are creating this professional learning experience. Do you want to increase access to maker learning for learners in your community? Maybe you want to train afterschool professionals in your district to begin implementing maker learning programs in their schools? Or perhaps your organization is committed to supporting educators with building maker learning experiences in communities nationally?

Ensure you are clear on your purpose, as this becomes your “why,” keeping you grounded in your work, connecting to your organization’s vision, and driving the way you engage in the design process.

Use the Vision Statement Tool (pages 10-12) created by Maker Ed to explore your purpose and begin developing an action plan.

Determine who the participants are for your professional learning experience. Some organizations may have an established audience, such as teachers in a district or staff in an afterschool program, who will participate in their professional learning experience. Consider:

• What are their needs as it relates to facilitating maker learning?
• Where are there opportunities to expand or go deeper with specific communities your organization engages with?
• Who is historically and systematically excluded from maker learning opportunities in your community, and how can you include them in your efforts?

Persona Development
Develop the persona of your participant audience to have a clear vision of who you are designing the professional learning experience for. Knowing and understanding your participant audience through the use of a persona will allow you to be strategic and intentional in your design and implementation from recruitment through reflection. Check your assumptions against first-person feedback when possible, and make adjustments as needed. This will support you in aligning your actions to the needs of the participants you hope to engage.

Begin to define the persona of your participant audience and consider:

• Who are your participants?
• What challenges are they solving for?
• What context are they operating within?
• How and why are you able to support them?

Case Study: While analyzing our team identity as it relates to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), the Maker Learning @ Home team was simultaneously planning the Maker Learning @ Home Cohort. This reflection caused our team to pause to reexamine the opportunity we designed and the audience. We found that our initial strategy would favor recruiting participants into the cohort who were familiar with Digital Promise, our definition of maker learning, and educators familiar with Powerful Learning. After thoughtfully discussing our aim to center equity in our work and examining our actions and biases, we pivoted to redefining our approach and identifying the learners we wanted to impact indirectly. We sought out educators new to maker learning, educators working in out-of-school and community spaces, and educators serving youth disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Rather than assuming educators were familiar with Powerful Learning principles, we created opportunities to share the principles and engage educators in how they support powerful maker learning experiences before the cohort experience was even launched. Our new direction created an opportunity for us to reexamine what is possible in how we do our work and who we do it with. It brought the lens of community into the fold in our maker learning work.

Designing for Equity

Empathize with the needs of your participants and the communities and contexts they are working within. Explore where there may be a lack of access to resources and information. Consider what your organization might be able to provide in those areas, and partner with external organizations in your network to help close the gap. Consider the following questions:

• Who represents the populations that have been historically underserved and denied access to making experiences in my community?
• In what ways are we including and excluding important stakeholders in the framing of our initiative?
• How can we be more intentional about addressing equity and access to our programs?

Begin designing your recruitment and outreach strategy. Consider what has proven reliable and effective in the past, while also remaining open to exploring new techniques. Develop your recruitment plan and materials, ensuring you communicate requirements, expectations, and incentives for participation. This is helpful whether you are working with a new group of educators, or you have a built-in audience, such as teachers participating in school-wide professional development. You can still use these strategies to generate excitement and buy-in for the experience. Where appropriate, collaborate with your organization’s communications team. Make your opportunity memorable so candidates will share it with their colleagues.

Think about the following to support your recruitment efforts:

• What networks and partners can you tap into to help spread the word about your maker professional learning experience?
• In which virtual and physical spaces can you find your participant audience?
• Are there influencers in the space you have a relationship with who can provide feedback on your promotional materials and help promote your opportunity?
• Where can you digitally and physically post information in your community to get the word out?

Here are a few resources to support designing your recruitment and outreach materials:

• Community Tool Box’s Communications to Promote Interest has tools and resources to support promoting community interests.
• Canva has templates to design recruitment materials.
• EDUimages by All4Ed provides stock images to use in recruitment materials.

Planning the logistics of your professional learning experience in a thoughtful manner is essential, as it impacts the educator’s experience. Think about the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your professional learning experience. There are numerous factors to consider in the planning process.

Onboarding Participants

The onboarding process is an essential component of the professional learning experience. During this time, share pertinent information such as logistics, meeting dates, deliverables, and due dates as applicable. Collaboratively set the tone for the space and establish agreements to support building a positive and engaging environment. Gather information from participants to support the design or revision of the professional learning experience. Be sure you understand what individuals need to participate fully and feel like they belong, including accommodations. Learn what they hope to gain as a result of their participation and include those components into the design of the professional learning experience.

Here is an example of the Maker Learning @ Home Cohort onboarding survey and sample kickoff agenda.

Meeting Cadence and Style

Determine your meeting cadence and style. How often you meet as a group will be determined by multiple factors, such as the outcomes of the maker professional learning experience, its content, and the amount of work to carry out. In addition to full-group meetings, one-on-one meetings are highly effective and provide the opportunity to dive into individual projects and support individual participants. Sessions can occur in multiple styles, such as full group meetings, one-to-one meetings, workgroups, and even in asynchronous workspaces. When determining your meeting style, ensure it is accessible for all participants, and when possible, gather input from participants to determine the best methods.

Communication

Consistent, clear, and open lines of communication are essential factors in the experience participants will have, and information pertaining to the professional learning experience should be easily and readily accessible. Consider ideal methods for open communication. For example, you might use Slack to post weekly updates and foster an online community for your participants to engage with one another. Or you can consider hosting virtual office hours so participants can check in with you when they have a question or need thought partnership. Be conscientious of over-communicating to the point of causing exhaustion or disinterest. Connect with participants to discuss what works and honor those agreements.

Devices and Wifi Access

Consider the level of access to technology devices and wifi access participants may or may not have. Although access to devices and wifi may seem commonplace, many individuals do not have computers or internet access, or they may be using a mobile device like a cell phone to connect. Whenever possible, provide participants with the technology they need to participate fully, and do not assume participants have certain types of devices. Seek out services in your community and networks to support closing the gap when possible.

Tools and Materials

When planning the professional learning experience, think about the tools and materials needed to engage your participants in interactive ways. Explore the Maker Learning Resource Library for tools to use in-person, remotely, and in hybrid environments. Find opportunities for hands-on activities that allow participants to disconnect from their tech devices. This Evaluating Tools for Making at Home document will help you decide which tool and materials you should use.

Agreements

Consider establishing agreements with your participants, as they set the tone and expectations for how participants will engage with one another. They also help develop the group’s culture and make implicit cultural norms explicit so that everyone can fully participate. Check out the National Equity Project’s Developing Community Agreements resource.

Furthermore, here are resources to explore in-depth strategies and logistical considerations to implement in your professional learning experience:

• Learner Variability Navigator: Instructional Design Tool
• d.school: Design Engaging In-Person and Remote Meetings
• National Equity Project: Virtual Facilitation Guidelines and Resources
• Community Tool Box: Providing Training and Technical Assistance
• Home Office Digital: Designing for Accessibility