When we finally had the options all squared away (monthly meetings, funding and the like) what remained was to create a plan of attack on how to use them. This page shows you the way we set out to provide Professional Development Opportunities and some of the reasons why. Some of this you may have heard before but we wanted the full story on the page.
We could not hope to list everything on a single page without boring everyone to tears so we've tried to limit it to the most important aspects of the "why".
An important grounding.
We are not the only source of Professional Development for CRTs. While we have done our best to make sure we can be if that's what some of you need, there are many other avenues. Workshops put on by schools. Mentoring from other teachers. Self-researched information and strategies on the internet. There are many ways to satisfy your PD requirements and this is one of the things our blog is about. Providing you with jumping-off points to take advantage of the things we don't, or can't, provide.
We only work within given areas and looking outside of what we offer is always a good idea.
Our Commitment to a Network.
"An extended group of people with similar interests or concerns who interact and remain in informal contact for mutual assistance or support."
Our Network has a coordinator only because there needs to be someone to book rooms, apply for funding, arrange catering, get presenters and take care of all of the clinical details. Otherwise our plan has always been to be a Network in every sense of the word. This is why we plaster our coordinators email everywhere and invite feedback from anyone who wants to submit it.
We also believe that a network must be social in order to survive as a true network. Not in the strict sense of the word but each activity should be as close to a gathering of friends and as enjoyable as we can possibly make it. You should want to connect with other members outside of the opportunities we provide. The best way for us to help that happen is to help our members create friendships with each other.
Professional Development Amount and Timing.
Our overall goal was to provide twice as much PD as any CRT needed to maintain their VIT registration. On a yearly basis, this meant providing 40 hours of PD activities. The reasons behind this are pretty simple. We all know what it's like trying to shoe-horn new activities around an existing lifestyle. We have families, friends, a social life. We wanted to disrupt this as little as possible for the majority of people.
First, the number of CRTs locally is very high. Albury/Wodonga is Australia's largest non-coastal population center servicing some 320,000 people when the rural surrounds are taken into consideration. This is a population in excess of Geelong and it's surrounding shires in the Barwon Region. Many Albury CRTs are also VIT registered so they can teach on both sides of the border. If everyone showed up every time for everything we simply wouldn't be able to cope with the numbers. It's a simple and unavoidable truth. We had to provide an excess of hours to make sure everyone gets covered.
If we provide twice as much as anyone needs, someone who has to miss half of them due to commitments in their personal life can still cover themselves completely with our activities. It also makes sure no-one feels guilty if they miss something, there will always be another opportunity right around the corner.
Lastly, we are not the only source of PD on offer. Mentoring from other teachers, your own research and all those other things are PD that we just don't or can't provide. If you only attend one quarter of our activities you'll get 10 hours which is half your yearly quota.
This, in theory, should allow for everyone to get as much Professional Development out of us as they need, when they need it, in a way that suits them. Whether it be all of it or or just top up hours they are short on. If it's a little unreasonable to travel to meetings every month because you live so far our of town, pick one or two a year and then take advantage of Seminars and Workshops for the rest. Alternatively, just use the Seminars and workshops if you like. Then use the blog as a starting point to get some more.
Professional Development Variety.
We believe that just coming to our PD activities to get your hours up should be the last thing on your mind. This means that we need to be offering a variety of PD so that there is something that everyone would attend just because they are interested, whether it be a personal interest or of specific use in a classroom they have an issue in.
The two broad divisions are monthly meetings and PD Seminars and Workshops guided by our ideal of being friends enjoying themselves.
Monthly meetings will alternate between Wednesdays and Thursdays each month. This allows for people with a static commitment on either of those two days to attend half of the meetings. To make sure they stay interesting to a wide variety of people, only part of any meeting will be formal and structured. We much prefer that members bring topics and resources of special interest to themselves for reading and discussion. Not only does this give a wide range of topics and possible interest, it brings a much more social aspect to our meetings.
Professional Development Seminars and Workshops are a little different. Primarily, the topic is set and there's not a lot of leeway once that is done to change course like there is in meetings. We have to get it right up front. The subject needs to be locally relevant and interesting to our CRTs and we have to avoid "doubling up" on topics each year. We need to provide enough variety that everyone can say "hey, I'd like to go to that one" at least once a year.
This means looking at the technical issues like Interactive Whiteboard training. Looking at the every-day issues like Literacy and Mathematics. Looking at the issue-driven topics like Autism and other special development. Enough so that everyone can say "hey, that would help ME in the classroom!" about one of them.
After that, we have to get the right Presenter. Someone animated, passionate and enjoyable to experience so you aren't walking back to your car feeling like it's been a day of work. We'd like you to be thinking "hey, that was pretty good, I'd like to come see them again!"
Last of all, we have to provide the vehicles to make sure you get to "social and enjoyable" outside of the face time with the Presenter. A pleasant venue, nice food and a social place to eat it.
Making sure we have the money to make it all happen.
It has never been our intention to charge membership fees or for tickets to make sure this all comes to fruition. We have settled on 2 fees only. A gold-coin donation for monthly meetings and a standard $10 booking fee for Professional Development Seminars and workshops.
Our ability to keep charges so low is largely due to the support of two parties:
The DEECD: The DEECD provides CRT Networks with the funding to put on seminars and workshops with a quite generous per-head limit on costs. Without their funding we would not be getting more than one or 2 seminars a year and they certainly wouldn't be of the quality we are able to present to you with their help.
The Wodonga South Primary School: The Principal and Staff at the Wodonga South Primary School volunteered their support very early in the process. They provide us with meeting and seminar venues either free or at a very low cost, also giving us access to extra facilities to make sure your experience at a seminar is as good as it can be for the lowest possible price.
Lastly, our Coordinator and other volunteers pick up the slack during seminars and workshops. Arranging the food, getting it out at the right time and cleaning up afterwards. This means we save on having to pay someone to do it for us.
We often have to pay travel and accommodation costs for metro and interstate presenters which can add up. Although the DEECD allows for regional networks to have to pay travel and accommodation costs in their funding applications, we have a set amount of money to spend each year. Each dollar we spend on travel and accommodation is a dollar we cannot spend on another presenter.
We were faced with some hard choices. Based on the funding and the DEECD's price per head requirements we could run about one full-day PD per term for a total of 4 per year. Allowances made for travel and accommodation expenses could see that drop to 3 per year, something we just weren't happy with.
This meant that cost-cutting measures were needed.
The most critical aid in this process was the support of Wodonga South Primary School. Although the low cost venue is a fairly apparent bonus, it's on flowing effects are tremendously beneficial to us. When you hire a commercial venue, they charge you for the room and then, almost always, it is a condition that they also supply the catering. When they supply the catering, they also supply the service to set it out and clean up afterwards. They also offer set menus and every addition to it costs you another dollar or two per head.
To make sure everyone is taken care of, it can often be costing $45-$50 dollars per head.
By using a separate venue we are free to seek out the catering we want and the quality we want at the price we need it to be. We can shop around for the best deals possible. By doing the serving ourselves we also take wages for the venue's staff out of the equation. We also do the cleaning ourselves removing those costs.
By doing this we are able to offset the travel and accommodation costs associated with many presenters.
On top of this, we are continually in search of high-quality local presenters. Sue King is an excellent example. Although she was local and involved no travel and accommodation expenses to try and offset, we still took advantage of our normal venue and the benefits of doing things ourselves. This allowed us to put on an enjoyable and informative PD at well under half the cost per head criteria for the DEECD funding.
These measures are allowing us to go from 3-4 full day PDs a year to 4 full day plus 3-4 half-day PDs per year.
This means that we can keep our gold-coin donations to cover meeting costs and rely on the booking fee to cover the costs for the day-to-day running of the network. At the same time we have made sure we don't have to skimp on the details when it comes to PD seminars and workshops to make sure the network stays social and enjoyable in everything it does.
Not only this, it also allows us to provide a volume of PD that tries to make sure no-one misses out on what they need to maintain their registration when personal circumstance is against them.
This system has been months in planning and organizing and we are finally at the stage of execution. We feel that every last piece of effort spent on it is worth it.
Melinda Lichnovsky-Klock
Wodonga CRT Support Network Coordinator.
