Promoting Show and Go PL
Professional development. A day we all dread and one from which we take away very little. Hours spent attending a one-size-fits-all session rarely lend themselves to something that can easily be implemented in the classroom, and we often have problems imagining how a generic strategy fits with our content area. The end result is instructional practice that remain unchanged, sometimes for years at a time or even decades, but how can we design new and improved professional learning that will engage educators and make them want to try new things?
After pondering this question and considering my dislike for the current state of professional learning, I had little hope that things would ever change. Then, I happened upon Allison Gulamhussein’s Teaching the Teacher’s Report (2015) in my graduate course through Lamar University. Upon reading her recommendations, I immediately made a connection between her words and my experiences at various school districts. Thank goodness she has identified common needs for educators across the board and created 5 Principles for Effective PD. Her principles’ are as follows:
The duration of professional learning must be significant and ongoing to allow time for teachers to learn a new strategy and grapple with the implementation problem.
There must be support for a teacher during the implementation stage that addresses the specific challenges of changing classroom practice.
Teachers’ initial exposure to a concept should not be passive, but rather should engage teachers through varied approaches so they can participate actively in making sense of a new practice.
Modeling has been found to be highly effective in helping teachers understand a new practice.
The content presented to teachers shouldn’t be generic, but instead specific to the discipline (for middle school and high school teachers) or grade-level (for elementary school teachers).
While considering the 5 points above, my focus was on various key words included in Gulamhussein’s work: “Ongoing support, active learning, modeling, and content specific.” Hallelujah! This sounds like a dream-come-true compared to what we have all experienced. I do not recall attending very many sessions that were specific to ELAR unless they were outside the District, and I have NEVER attended PD that was specific to technology integration and ELAR. This is terrible considering the fact that I work with juniors who are two years away from entering college or the workforce. How are they going to function in society with a lack of technology training due to a lack of teacher training. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to design new PD to remedy this problem?
To help share my enthusiasm with leaders in my District, I have designed a presentation that details the “5 Principles” (Gulamhussein, 2015), and provides some recommendations as to how we can begin to change the look and feel of our PD practices and gravitate toward a model for effective professional development. My finished product is included below:
While I was planning my video, I felt that including photos of my colleagues and I in our teaching environment would help to illustrate my ideas in the minds of administration, so I spent the bulk of this week trying to capture action shots around campus. I was able to snap some shots to fit most of the points I wanted to address is my video, but I still needed a few more, so I ended up finding a few online. In addition to collecting illustrations, I began crafting a script little by little, so I would be ready to put it all together over the weekend.
When it was time to build my video, I wanted to stick to something that would be easy and familiar, so I opted to create a PowerPoint and import the slides into Window’s Movie Maker. Not a very creative method, but nonetheless, I spent the better part of my weekend trying to get it right. Here is an image of my work in progress:
Now that the video is uploaded on Youtube, I can see that it is longer than it should have been, and I have a few audio issues, but I still think the message is an effective one. I even showed it to my husband who works in our technology department, and he said he wants to share in the with the superintendent. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that, and he may just be humoring me, but still I feel like I am onto something here. I am going to keep pushing to improve staff development on my campus and in my District, and I will begin by discussing my ideas for active PD with my curriculum coordinator when she visits our campus tomorrow. Hopefully, in the upcoming years, staff development days will be ones we can all look forward to!
References
Gulamhussein, A. (2013). Teaching the Teachers Effective Professional Development in an Era of High Stakes Accountability. Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffingstudents/Teaching-the-Teachers-Effective-Professional-Development-in-an-Era-of-High-Stakes-Accountability/Teaching-the-Teachers-Full-Report.pdf
