This course will focus on improving learning environments and learner achievements by enabling educators to use the key principles of effective professional learning to move from the sit and get to the go and show model of professional learning. 

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   The Plan

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Financial Stress Prevents College Students from Graduating.

What Can We Do?

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The Why - There’s an old piece of wisdom that “being rich means you don't have to think about money.” The source of that quote is long lost, but it remains true as ever - and for too many students and families, the opposite is equally true. If you’re struggling with finances, money is never far from your mind. So therefore, we look at higher education as a way out. Unfortunately, the very financial stress students are trying to escape can make it harder to earn a degree. Can financial aid, scholarships, and other support services help students break out of the cycle? Here’s where WE, the financial aid team, comes in? Each and everevery day we counsel students with different financial issues, we witness the stress firsthand and see the effect it has on our students.I believe that if our faculty and staff are equipped with substantial knowledge and training, we can tackle all of our students' financial stress and put it to rest.

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The What - Professional learning is what professionals do to learn more about their field in order to succeed and meet goals.The federal student aid and the office of the U.S. The Department of Education sponsors the financial aid toolkit for counselors. The site is filled with basic concepts of financial aid with detailed multi day classroom training. We spend a significant number of hours at these required training sessions. There is an extensive number of materials out there for any counselor, advisor, or mentor who needs to improve their expertise. However, how do we personalize this information so that it addresses Lamar University students? 

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I am working with a small group who believe the culture of professional development can be improved through creating significant learning environments for administration, educators, counselors, as well students combined with a growth mindset. Professional Learning recognizes that counselors are learning and growing just like their students. While the term “development” indicates a process that has an end point, “learning” recognizes that professional growth is a never-ending, lifelong process.How might we create a culture of inquiry for administration/educators?

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We can start with a simple shift in rhetoric. As professionals in education, are we not in fact professional learners? Professional growth is a never-ending, lifelong process in which we are constantly improving through a constructivist perspective that involves application and reflection.

According to John Hattie’s extensive research, "The biggest effect in our business is the expertise of teachers. It’s teachers who work together, collectively, collaboratively, to understand their impact.” We believe we can improve the effectiveness of teachers and create a culture of inquiry with improved professional learning.

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The How- The purpose of the proposed financial literacy and technology training is to ensure that every specialist and counselor has the skills to deliver excellent instruction in traditional and blended session. During the training, we will expose the financial aid administration to various online learning tools. 

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There are two main objectives:

1. to improve financial literacy skills of instruction and suppot staff

2. to improve instructor effectiveness by delivering inormation in a traditional and blended environment. 

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Using a combination of face-to-face and online meetings, we'll meet those objectives by engaging in the following activities:

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• identify the digital literacy skills of staff

• provide training designed to help counselors increase their digital literacy skills

• identify the training and support staff will need to deliver online instruction

• implement training activities that include both blended and self-directed learning

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In order to have effective professional learning, we must consider the 5 key principles. Although we are not educators, our job requires us to educate our students on financial entities. The principles are useful and can be used to undertake any measure to grow. 

 

Principle1 : The Duration - Professional Development must be a significant amount of time and ongoing over a period of time. We should not expect “one and done” training to accomplish an everlasting change. Yet, that is what is expected when using the financial aid toolkit administered by the Federal Student Aid. 

 

• Our counselors should organize a peer group to help one another study and perhaps observe the concepts in action. We will then take video of ourselves practicing the regulations and delivering the information to students, such as role playing. 

 

Principle2: The Support -  We must be supported while implementing what we learn as we work through frustrations and challenges. This is what will allow change to happen. 

 

• For example, executive management will need to be available as sit in during the professional development trainings

 

Principle3: The Engagement - The initial exposure to a concept should not be passive, but should engage counselors through varied approaches so they can participate actively in making sense of the new practice. 

 

• The “Sit and Get”training has been proven to be significantly less effective than active training in which we are expected to practice new skills. We need to provide active opportunities such as readings, role playing, open ended discussions, live modeling, and office visits. 

 

Principle4 : The Modeling - Modeling has been found to be highly effective in helping counselors understand a new practice. Counselors are great models of educational skills and can often be recruited to express those skills in the real world. 

 

• The plan is to introduce my innovation by incorporating financial literacy into each financial aid session. The goal is to build a report with each of our students so that they are comfortable discussing financial issues. Since this is a new skill, modeling will definitely need to take place, in order to show success and demonstrate active understanding.

 

Principle5 : The content - The content presented to counselors shouldnt be generic, but instead specific to the discipline or grade level. As a financial aid counselor, our training will need to focus on higher education which is the intended audience. 

 

• The content will be designed specifically for counselors and available resources for coaching sessions will focus on working with college school level students.

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References 

Bates, A.W. (2015) Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning (Chapters 8-10). Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

 

Harapnuik, D. (2016, June 13). Why you need a BHAG to design learning environments [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.harapnuik.org/?p=6414

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