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The commitment to provide professional development was there, but the teams from

Coachella Valley Unified School District and Discovery Education had to figure

out a way to implement with fidelity and create a model that would be scalable.

Recognizing the importance of keeping teachers in their classrooms with their

students, the teams faced the challenge of figuring out how to deliver

strong and meaningful professional development while minimizing

teachers’ time out of the classroom. They quickly turned to model

lesson demonstrations as a viable solution.

The administrators in Coachella Valley Unified School District wanted to fully

integrate digital content, technology, and successful instructional strategies

to raise student engagement and achievement. They already had Discovery

Education streaming Plus for digital content and knew that professional

development was the key to a change movement.

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800-323-9084DiscoveryEducation.com

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DevelopingLeadersforDigitalClassroomsCoachella Valley Unified School District (Coachella) provides services to approximately 14,600 students, over 97% of which are Hispanic or Latino. In this small community, the focus is on academic achievement for all students and that means strong programs and support for English Language Learners. Digital content and technology are a natural fit for all types of learners from every background, and the visual and audio support offered by Discovery Education services can be especially helpful for building vocabulary and content knowledge. According to Alma Gonzalez, Director of English Learner Services, “being able to see [content] on screen, to hear it, and to do the dubbing, and to bring in multimedia presentations for them really brings it to life.”

The district had invested in the content, and wanted to strengthen their learning and support system for teachers. The leadership in Coachella was concerned that the amazing things they were seeing in the classrooms of teachers who were comfortable with digital content and technology were not being replicated in other classrooms with teachers who may need more training and support. Their goal was to use a coaching structure, combined with model lessons, to provide the level of support that each teacher needed.

“A key component that fit for us, for our school, was being able to see the model lesson demonstration…. This was taking something that the teacher was already utilizing, his lesson plan, and they say, ‘We’re going to integrate Discovery Ed into your lesson that you created.’ They come in, they demo it, and you get to see how you integrate.”

Conrad Gonzalez,Instructional Coach Coachella Valley Unified School District

DiscoveryEducation.com 800-323-9084

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DesigningModelLessonDemonstrationswithDiscoveryEducation

Creating a solution for professional development that allowed for limited time out of the classroom was a team effort. Alma Gonzalez knew her staff needed something more than the traditional train-the-trainer approach. “We figured that we needed to see it in use in the classroom and that’s where the use of model lessons came from,” she said. Discovery Education was able to design a model lesson demonstration structure that involved several teachers who volunteered their classrooms to be models of 21st century learning. With support from district personnel and a professional development implementation that included follow-up train-the-trainer sessions, the Discovery Education Professional Development team began developing model lessons based on the existing curriculum in Coachella.

The model lesson demonstration structure paired a Discovery Education Professional Development (DEPD) Specialist with a classroom teacher in Coachella. Together, the two decided on the content of the lesson to be used for modeling. Then, the DEPD Specialist selected digital content, technology, and instructional strategies that were best suited to the lesson objectives. When it was time to deliver the lesson, the DEPD Specialist taught the class, modeling the integration of all the aspects of the lesson, so the classroom teacher and attending instructional coaches were free from instructional responsibilities and could observe the learning.

Following the delivery of a model lesson demonstration, the entire instructional team – led by a DEPD Specialist – gathered for a debrief and evaluation session. This structure enables the teacher to adapt to, and adopt, the delivery of a fully-integrated lesson and the instructional coach to scale the learning up to other teachers in the district.

Although it’s too early for quantitative test results, the participating teachers and coaches at every level are energized. “One teacher, for example, she had never shown a video in her classroom. And, so I helped her. We went through step by step… and she played it for her kids and I’ve never seen her with such a big smile. [Her] kids were totally engaged. They said, ‘When are we going to do this again?’ says Sean McQuown, Instructional Coach.

Students are responding, too. Alma Gonzalez can see it in her classroom visits: “In the classrooms that I’ve walked into where they’re using technology you can see the student engagement.” The key, Alma and her team agree, has been providing the time and training to teachers who truly want to engage their students with compelling content, so they can become comfortable with the technology and skilled at integrating digital content and instructional strategies that work in their classrooms.

“It’s been a great experience with the trainers. They know exactly what we need; we talked about it beforehand…. We make sure that everything we’re doing is targeted to support our coaches.”

Alma Gonzalez,Director of English Learner Services Coachella Valley Unified School District