We can all agree that professional development is essential in any profession, especially education. It is an opportunity to become better at what we do as well as gain knowledge on new pedagogical techniques, learning theories, leadership strategies, technologies, and federal/state mandates. With budgets being continuously slashed across the country, districts are beginning to tighten their belts. When this happens the first line item to get cut is professional development. This has resulted in fewer and fewer opportunities for educators to attend out of district learning opportunities as there is no funding to support travel, registration fees, and expenses.
Professional development has now become the sole burden of school districts for better or worse. It has become a tug of war, in a sense, as districts use this valuable time, which equates to only a day or two in many cases, to focus on organizational needs. On the other hand, individual educators have specific needs and passions that they want to explore. They want the freedom to chart their own learning course while receiving support from the organization to do so. Quality professional development rests on the ability of the organization to not only meet their needs but also that of its constituents.
Something has to give though. The pieces of training that many educators are now forced to attend are usually driven by whatever the federal and state governments have mandated. The key word here is forced. Educators now have to attend mandate-driven workshops on new standards, teacher/principal evaluation changes, and using data. Now, I am not saying that these things are not important, but it is hard as a professional to develop a love for learning when one has to succumb to daylong training with absolutely no authenticity. Many more questions than answers materialize. Will this help my students learn and achieve? Is this yet another flavor-of-the-month initiative? Is this a wise use of our time?
When the organization dominates the planning, agenda, and implementation of mandate-driven professional development, the end result is often catastrophic. The most important element of PD is missing – the needs, desires, and passions of the learner. Even in the absence of mandates, organizations seem to be out of touch with their stakeholders as session after session becomes death by PowerPoint and stacks of paper handouts. The dominating structure fulfills the goal of pumping as much information as possible into our heads, yet fails to inspire change.
Effective professional development is:
So what did I miss? What are some other issues with professional development? Can you provide other innovative and effective PD options?
Image credit: http://theevolutionofeducation.blogspot.com/2011/07/people-development-is-key-to.html
Professional development has now become the sole burden of school districts for better or worse. It has become a tug of war, in a sense, as districts use this valuable time, which equates to only a day or two in many cases, to focus on organizational needs. On the other hand, individual educators have specific needs and passions that they want to explore. They want the freedom to chart their own learning course while receiving support from the organization to do so. Quality professional development rests on the ability of the organization to not only meet their needs but also that of its constituents.
Something has to give though. The pieces of training that many educators are now forced to attend are usually driven by whatever the federal and state governments have mandated. The key word here is forced. Educators now have to attend mandate-driven workshops on new standards, teacher/principal evaluation changes, and using data. Now, I am not saying that these things are not important, but it is hard as a professional to develop a love for learning when one has to succumb to daylong training with absolutely no authenticity. Many more questions than answers materialize. Will this help my students learn and achieve? Is this yet another flavor-of-the-month initiative? Is this a wise use of our time?
When the organization dominates the planning, agenda, and implementation of mandate-driven professional development, the end result is often catastrophic. The most important element of PD is missing – the needs, desires, and passions of the learner. Even in the absence of mandates, organizations seem to be out of touch with their stakeholders as session after session becomes death by PowerPoint and stacks of paper handouts. The dominating structure fulfills the goal of pumping as much information as possible into our heads, yet fails to inspire change.
Effective professional development is:
- Meaningful
- Relevant
- Allowing educators to choose what they what to learn about
- Accommodating to different learning styles
- Providing time to apply what has been learned
- Focused on one initiative as opposed to many simultaneously
- Organized in a way that time to apply what has been learned is provided
- Convenient in the sense that learning can take place at any time from anywhere
- Cost-effective
- Embedded into the school day if possible
- Accessed through available technology
- Resulting in observable outcomes related to changes in professional practice and student achievement
- Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s)
- Personal Learning Networks (PLN’s)
- Professional Growth Periods (PGP’s)
- Edcamps (For an introduction to Edcamp click HERE)
So what did I miss? What are some other issues with professional development? Can you provide other innovative and effective PD options?
"embedded in the school day" is so important! But, we are now faced with excellent teachers being removed from their classes...is the risk worth the reward?
ReplyDeleteJarrett - At my school we do not remove teachers from their classes to make our embedded PD model work. What we have done is reduce their non-instructional duties (hall, cafeteria, in-school suspension, etc.) to give them the time to learn during the school day.
ReplyDeleteHello Eric, and thank you for sharing your thoughts of this. Totally agree with the concept of personalized PD. Here is another related post that clearly speaks to this - http://goo.gl/yLVx9
ReplyDeleteAnytime, anywhere, personalized, authentic, connected learning - sounds like something that would be great for student learners too! (wink, wink)
Robert - Thank you for sharing that link and adding to the discussion. I am going to embed it directly into the post. Getting students to this point is our ultimate goal once teachers become comfortable with it.
ReplyDeleteI have abundantly enjoyed reading your musings! I would like to use some of your insightful thoughts and share them at #EduCampAKL (2013, in New Zealand)giving you credit of course:
ReplyDeletehttps://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107908022828679085237/stream/e0033dfe-c364-4ee9-9e6d-9afe0d4b1307
Your idea of continuous PD resonates with me, my practice and in my desire to support the learning of others. Thank you so much.
@perssonality
Eric,
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this timely and important post. With all the mandates, policies and expectations permeating our learning organizations, we cannot neglect our primary goal- doing what is best for our children. In order to accomplish this goal, we must provide our community of educators with relevant, timely, current and sustainable PD experiences. In doing some preliminary research for my dissertation related to principal PD one of the common features that in effective PD experiences is a group/cohort feature which encourages people to collaborate and feel supported when they apply new understandings within their context. This group/cohort piece is critical to sound PD and thus I'm happy to see you included the ideas of PLCs and PLNs. Thank you!
Tony
Eric,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right; the needs of the learner must be considered during professional development planning. Often your veteran teachers’ needs are quite different from the needs of the new teacher. In addition, I have found that the teachers who are really dedicated will find professional development opportunities that will meet their needs on their own.
Thought you might like to see this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2013/06/12/03whatworks.h06.html?qs=flipped