Effective PD says the research....

When I put together a workshop for teachers I try to make it as valuable as possible. The way I approach a workshop is always changing…hopefully for the better. My early tech workshops were all basically “how to”. “How to do this or that” type workshops. Although I still resort to this at times, the real meat has to be the “what now”. Now that you have the “how to do it/use” portion down then you need to take the step of using it with your students. This is the part of the workshop that is the most challenging and also has the most potential power.
The Feb issue of Educational Leadership was all about teaching learning…ie PD. So how do my workshops align with “best practice”?

Best PD is onsite
My workshops are in the district and in my own building. We have a great lab with reliable equipment so it just makes sense. It also makes sense for the teachers to be comfortable and not have to travel. Having access to your room resources and content materials is also very helpful.

Best PD is job embedded
I interpret this to mean that the PD directly impacts the work you do in the classroom and the goals you/we have set for our school and the teacher’s class. So ultimately our goal as a classroom teacher is for students to learn….or as the state would call it our job is to raise achievement. We are still working thru understanding the how/why of it but traditionally our kids score better on math than reading. So if raising reading achievement is a more pressing goal than we need to include raising reading achievement as part of our workshop/new learnings. I generally leave that up to the teacher to decide…but I want my teachers to focus their work on what will it mean for the students…not just making the workshop an addition to the teacher’s knowledge base. Nothing wrong with growing knowledge…but sadly there are gaps between “knowing and doing”.

Best PD is sustained
I cannot give myself a check on that one. Sadly most of my workshops are about a week in length. My typical workshop runs during the summer and teachers are highly focused on the content for a week. That is not sustained. However, this upcoming workshop will run from February to May. That is more sustained. I am looking forward to this model and hope the teachers and myself have the endurance to pull it off as we are all used to shorter classes. What sustained? Well, I want people to try to build in some new habits and that takes time. I hope to work with teachers on growing their own PLN during this course. Blogging and reading blogs doesn’t happen in a week. Sadly more workshop is spread out but it doesn’t hit what research says is the critical stat of effective PD being at least 14 hours in duration.

Best PD is active
Yes, by all means feel free to get up and stretch if I am talking too much. Hey, that happens to all teachers….I have lots of content to cover so get ready to absorb it. Although we know this doesn’t really work we still do it. We do it with our students and we do it when teaching other adults. Why? It allows us to convey large amounts of content. But perhaps we need to slow down and focus on what content is most important. The current class will be active not just because we will do our afternoon calisthenics but because the expectation will be that teachers try out some of these tools with the children. Another great reason to have a workshop during the school year.
Best PD is focused on student outcomes
Similar to job embedded comments but basically we want the PD to impact our students. We want them to grow in their skills, mastery, knowledge and abilities. And yes, we want them to get better test scores. That is not why we went into teaching, but it is a part of today’s educ. game. I dare you to take this test. Place a video camera in your class for an hour. Press play and record. The kids will eventually get over the camera being there. Now, after teaching, go back and see how many students were with you or sadly not. Technology engages and when we have engagement our likelihood of impacting those outcomes rises greatly. One of the most depressing stats I ever heard about my own class was the school psychologist compare one students level of engagement to that of the rest of the class. It really shakes your confidence to hear a chunk of your students weren’t even paying attention to the brilliant lesson you prepared. Chances are you were the most engaged person in the room. How do we change this? Put a computer, a great tool of engagement, into the hands of a student and figure out how to harness that engagement for your own learning/teaching purposes.

More on the class later.