My Big Takeaway from TCEA 2017

This year I had the privilege of attending the TCEA Conference in Austin, Texas with my fellow Ready 1:1 Coaches. I was excited to go because I've never actually been to the city of Austin and from what I had heard, TCEA was an invigorating experience. 

I didn't know what to expect my first day of the conference. There wasn't many session available but the Google Academy caught my attention. There were a few interesting ideas but, in general, the first day was a bust. I left my first day with low expectations. 

I decided to attend the Leadership Academy on the second day where I attended a session called "Creating PD That Teachers Would Actually Attend" by Nathaniel Holt from Royse City ISD. This was the big ah-ha moment I was looking for. Before I get into what I learned, let me give you some back story.

As an instructional coach, a major component of my job is to train teachers. While I am making headway with some, the vast majority of teachers are still hesitant to attend my sessions. I've provided learning opportunities before school, during conference periods, during lunch, and after school and only a handful of teachers show up. I've even tried bribes! I've given away jeans passes and free food vouchers. I didn't know what more I could do. I was at a point where I was frustrated and somewhat defeated. I didn't want to make anything mandatory because teachers already have enough on their plates, but I wanted to inspire teachers to want to learn.


So back to Mr. Holt's session. I was totally inspired by Royse City's professional development framework. Royse City is on track to have each secondary teacher participate in over 50 hours of voluntary professional development. That's impressive!  

They have a system that employs game theory. There are five elements of game theory. Not all of them have to be present for successful gamification. 

1. There has to be a plot with characters. The plot does not have to be intricate. (story dynamic)
2. People should be able to fail. You don't want it to be too easy. Make the process a struggle. (failure dynamic)
3. There should be multiple pathways to achieve the same goal. (flexibility dynamic)
4. People need to feel like they are going somewhere. It helps if progress is visible. (progression dynamic)
5. I didn't get the description of the last dynamic but I know that it's the construction dynamic.

Teachers are presented with challenges for which they earn badges. Outside their doors, teachers have a physical game board marking their progress towards the next level. 

There are three levels of challenges that teachers can earn. There is also an optional fourth level of achievements that are time sensitive. To progress to the next level on the game board, a teacher must complete 6 badges in a Tier and complete 6 training sessions in their content area. Not all challenges are tied to technology. Some are tied to collaborative, student-centered teaching strategies like Kagan cooperative learning.

Upon leveling up, teachers are given prizes and presented with their badge to place on their game boards. 

One of my favorite aspects of their process is that a student technology team manages the whole process from creating challenges to managing and assigning badges. 

Seeing how Royse City structures their PD has inspired me to develop a system like this for my campus, and hopefully my entire district. I hope to have it up and running by the end of the school year for teachers to start earning badges over the summer. 

Here is a link to Royse City's badging site.

On a personal note, I now understand what "keep Austin weird" and "Austin traffic" really mean.