Turning Professional Development on Its Head

In his article "Turn the Tables On Professional Learning" Keith Janelli stated that "effective professional development for teachers should be personalized" and technology can help that become a reality.  In essence, it was all about replacing one size fits all professional development with PD designed to meet the individual needs of teachers.

It is about time to turn teacher professional development on its head to meet the needs of individual staff members.  Countless times, I have walked out of a PD session learning nothing new.  Maybe my practices were affirmed, but I'm in a PD session to improve my practice not to affirm what I am already doing.  According to the article, personalizing learning for teachers, just like for students, takes a great deal of preparation and planning.

Janelli's article stated that it took 2 months of planning to pull off a 2.5 hour personalized PD session.  A staff development committee began with observing teachers and initiating discussions as they joined teacher planning meetings.  The purpose was to gather teacher feedback about the focus tools for the PD sessions and engage teachers in buying into using these tools.   Teachers then answered survey questions on their preferences and comfort level with the tools.

From there, the district found teacher experts to help plan and lead sessions with other staff members.  Objectives and proficiency skill lists were developed for each of the tools.  Then another needs assessment was administered to determine which group was the best fit for each teacher.  Teachers with similar needs met with teacher experts for their particular session.

Districts could and should engage in this type of professional development.  As Janelli said, "teachers deserve good teaching."  While it would take a great deal of preparation and planning, it would be well received and valued PD instead of the typical sit and get PD that oftentimes occurs.  One obstacle is the amount of teacher feedback that is required to plan such PD.  It requires teachers to actually engage in the discussions at planning meetings and complete the surveys sent to them in a thoughtful way.  It requires a great deal of trust between teachers and the coaches or whoever is planing the PD.  Coaches might be in classrooms observing teachers or having discussions at planning meetings.  This is not meant to be evaluative - except in the means of determining the best PD for teachers.  

With this in mind, I designed a Professional Development Outline for a 2 Hour After School Collaboration meeting for my department.  Beforehand, we decided what the topic would be.  We identified a curricular need and decided that each school's representatives would be prepared to share an app, tool, lesson, or strategy to support vocabulary development that was added to our agenda document.

During the meeting, teachers had an opportunity to interact with the websites, apps, etc. that were shared and, through discussion, connect that new tool or lesson idea to the 4C’s.

Using the teacher experts that already exist within a district, can be very effective. Planning out objectives and skills for various sessions makes efficient use of limited professional development time.  I'm confident teachers would rather participate in a PD session that is geared to meet their needs at their own pace.

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