Ready to get started with a Mini eWorkshop? Just follow these steps!

STEP 1: Identify with whom you want to collaborate in our professional learning.

Our mini eWorkshops are for professional learning communities of educators and were designed to provide meaningful opportunities for collaboration. Therefore, our professional learning should be taken with a minimum of 2 educators working together and a maximum of ~10. We recommend groups of 4-6 educators work together in an mini eWorkshop. It is often beneficial for educators to collaborate in a mini eWorkshop with other educators from their same school or district, but because of the online nature of our professional learning, educators may choose to collaborate with other educators near and far. We encourage potential participants to utilize our mini eWorkshops as meaningful resources to support collaborative learning via professional learning communities.  For anyone interested in facilitating a mini eWorkshop we have prepared a detailed guide here. In order to support the agency, leadership, and collaboration of all participants taking part in our professional learning we ask that you read and follow the guidelines provided in the ICMEE facilitator guide.  

Please also note that our professional learning is all password protected learning spaces for self-selected communities. The work that participants do in a mini eWorkshop Book Club is only visible to the other members of the learning community and members of the ICMEE Team.

STEP 2: Select the professional learning you would like to take.

Please review the available professional learning we offer and collaboratively select the eWorkshop, mini eWorkshop, or Book Club that your group will find most beneficial to engage in.

STEP 3: Select the date for launching your professional learning.  Be sure to give the ICMEE team a minimum of two weeks to assist you in launching into your mini eWorkshop. 

Our professional learning can be launched at any time a group would like to begin an available mini eWorkshop. Therefore, once a group is put together and the professional learning that is the best fit for your group has been selected, determining when to start is the next important step. The ICMEE team requires two weeks advanced notice to set up the mini eWorkshop for any interested group. Therefore, be sure to select a date that gives the ICMEE team at least two weeks advanced notice.

Mini eWorkshops include 1, 2, or 3 units total and each unit takes approximately three hours of a participants’ time to complete. Be sure that when you are selecting the time to start your mini eWorkshop you are planning for the entire mini eWorkshop to run during the school year. Participants need to have access to students, classrooms, data, etc. to meaningfully engage in mini eWorkshop learning.

When you reach out to the ICMEE Team to start a mini eWorkshop be prepared to share both the start date of the mini eWorkshop, as well as the timeline you would like the  mini eWorkshop to run on.  Additionally, we encourage you to share with your professional learning colleagues an anticipated timeline to support active collaboration and engagement across the mini eWorkshop.  Here is a sample of what that might look like for a 6 week plan for a mini eWorkshop.

Getting Started: September 24th (taking pre-surveys, getting enrolled, meet and greet)

Finish Unit 1 Explore: Oct 1st

Finish Unit 1 Share: Oct 8th

Finish Unit 2 Explore: Oct 15th

Finish Unit 2 Share: Oct. 22nd

Finish Unit 3 Explore: Oct. 29th

Finish Unit 3 Share and Complete Post-Surveys: Nov. 5th

STEP 4: To request a mini eWorkshop submit the following information to the ICMEE Team.

To Request a mini eWorkshop please submit the following via email to icmee@unl.edu:

·       Name of desired mini eWorkshop(s)

o   If you would like multiple sections of one mini eWorkshop to accommodate multiple groups taking the same professional learning within one school or district, please let us know how many sections you are interested in.

·       mini eWorkshop start date

·       mini eWorkshop end date

·       School District and State 

o   If participants are in multiple school districts/states, please list the school district and state for the person organizing the professional learning.  

After submitting this information to the ICMEE Team, you will hear from a member of the team with the information necessary to self-enroll into both our database and your requested professional learning.  We do not manage enrollments on our end, we send the necessary information and supports for interested participants to enroll themselves. We do support any troubles that may come up (please contact icmee@unl.edu), but the information we provide allows groups to flexibly get themselves started and manage their own work. This also means, that we only need to be in touch with the person or persons organizing the professional learning. The organizer is then an important communicator with the rest of the mini eWorkshop participants to share enrollment information. Please note we need participants to enroll first in our database with the information, including the Group ID, provided by the ICMEE Team. Via database enrollment, participants are given the necessary information to navigate to the mini eWorkshop space that has been created specifically for their group on Canvas.

STEP 5: Use the information from the ICMEE Team to self-enroll into the ICMEE database and get started in the mini eWorkshop on Canvas. Then begin to learn and collaborate!

Participation in ICMEE professional learning should be flexible, meaningful and enjoyable. If there is anything the ICMEE Team can do to assist you as you engage in our professional learning please let us know!