Summary: PD Experiences
From LiteracyTentWiki
Question: Thinking back on your own journey as an educator, tell us about what has helped you make a shift in your thinking and acting-a PD experience or combination of experiences that you felt has helped you to improve your practice. (...versus something that you enjoyed attending but it didn't make a difference in the long run.)
If you are professional development staff, please also tell us about what you've seen to be effective in leading to teacher change.
In response to the question above, participants shared the following responses, categorized by discussion themes that emerged:
In-depth PD
- We especially benefit from new learning that is connected to what we already know, that extends and challenges our understanding, knowledge and skills. This is a constructivist or project-based approach to learning
- Participants need to have control of the learning activities, to tailor them to their own needs, their own goals and levels of knowledge and experience. They also need to be able to explore their own questions, and to connect what they are learning with what they are doing in their classrooms. This cannot be done in one workshop. It requires opportunities to learn, try out, synthesize, and share with colleagues. This in-depth professional development, the kind that significantly improves practice, takes time.
- Experiential and immersion learning experiences – having students (and thus teachers in professional development) experience what they are expected to learn
Reflective Practice
- Teachers experience their own evaluation of their own ways of learning and teaching and reflect on what THAT kind of learning is.
- Teach them how to become reflective learners
- Make change then reflect on that change
Choice
- Task based learning and experiential learning I think work together to promote reflective practice and transformative learning. But neither of these will be as rich, if the educator doesn't choose what he/she wants to work on and have a strong understanding of why.
Self-Directed Learning
- This is where REAL PD comes in-- people who work with learners who have never been taught the power of self-directed learning--how to do it effectively and authentically-- need to learn through good PD to be able to communicate to such learners positive views of their being able to learn how to be learners. I always tell my training groups that learners, like children, always live up or down to the expectations of their teachers--just as the learners at that center in Texas do--they drop out because from the first, the expectation is that they will.
- Getting out of the “cook book” mode
- The whole approach to learning in adult education, it seems to me, has been adopted wholesale from the teacher-centered, lesson-plan culture of K-12--and it is the antithesis of what adult learners need to thrive. When I try to get teachers to think about methods such as learning centers or individual learning plans or folders, both methods where learners make their own decisions about what they want to learn and how, the first response is always, "You mean I will have to do 15 different lesson plans??" I had one teacher in a PD session rise up in annoyance and tell me she could NEVER do this kind of teaching because it would mean students might TALK. (This was an ESOL training, too.....) As I say, the need to control the classroom to feel competent is pretty deeply ingrained.
On motivating teachers to consider change
- It seems that helping people talk/think through what they do, where they feel they're strong and then where they feel they might learn, might be a good way to start.
- Seeing what other adult education teachers were doing in their classrooms, even the classroom next door
- Trying to motivate practitioners to become more interested in PD is to put them through simulations. Let them experience low literacy and then relate the simulation to the technique you are trying to teach.
- Interactive
- Multiple context approach
Curriculum
- Flexibility with curriculum - employing a 'living curriculum' can take much pressure off the teacher and encourage student autonomy and buy in. The most gratifying part of this is that I continue to learn in tandem with the students which I feel is a great demonstration of respect for who they are and what they offer to the community of learning.
Time to Share With Other Educators
- Provide lots of opportunities for networking - one of the biggest complaints we get regarding inservices is that there was not enough time to share.
- The hard part about PD is that we all want something that we can take and apply immediately- however, there are few techniques or strategies that will work in 100% of our varied situations. I have found that some of the most valuable time spent in PD workshops and meetings, is the time I spend talking to other educators about their adaptations of a technique or strategy. These conversations have helped me in 3 ways:
- 1. I have the opportunity to think about how what we are learning can apply to my situation.
- 2. I have the chance to get other ideas from educators that I might not have heard from- enabling me to think of still more creative ways to use what we are learning in the PD seminar.
- 3. If we are talking about a strategy or technique that I am already familiar with (as frequently happens in PD seminars), I have the time to think about it in a new or creative way, and bounce ideas off other professionals.
- Sharing with other teachers - Other posts have mentioned this, and I see it as important in two ways. The first is to help avoid the perennial "reinvent the wheel." The second is that I feel it goes a long way towards treating part-time teachers as professional, contributing members of the department. So often, I feel like part-time professional development takes an almost remedial tone. But I know that my colleagues are doing creative, exciting things in their classrooms, and I would love to learn about it.
Follow-Up
- We don't expect our students to learn new skills without feedback on their performance. Why do we expect it of our teachers? I personally have only had one professional development experience that included follow-up mechanisms. And that was the only professional development workshop that has significantly changed my philosophy and my teaching practice (it was about student voice and student leadership in the classroom).
- Follow up not only makes teachers accountable, but also allows them to see success through change
PD policies
- Mandated professional development - Isn't lifelong learning what our profession is all about?
- Pay - This may sound petty, but it's not. If I have to divide my already low per hour wage by the mandatory unpaid admin work, the unpaid prep time, and then mandatory unpaid professional development time, I'm coming out around minimum wage. And professional development, even if it has no registration fee, is still not free to a part-timer. Almost for sure, I will have either child care or transportation costs associated with my attendance.
Treatment as Professionals
- Agendas & needs - Some people have asked how to get buy-in from reluctant teachers. Have you asked them what they want to learn? I know it is tempting as an administrator to "know" what your teachers need. And you may have a very valid point. But so often as I sit in our semester in-service, I feel like what is called "professional development" is really more like an indoctrination. The state requires X, the program requires Y, and good teachers do Z. Great, but what I really wish is that the program, which needs to accomplish both X and Y, would have a genuine conversation with the teachers about how we as a group can best meet those requirements AND provide the best possible learning experience to students. As a whole, part-timers may not have the credentials of full-timers, but we have an awful lot of practical experience and we are often the ones who have to buy in and carry out the activities needed to really get the program to X and Y. This is, again, a question of treating part-time teachers as professionals.
- Shared opportunities for PD between both part-time and full-time staff
Individual responsibility
- With the changes and the increased demands of our profession, we have a responsibility to learn how to do the best job we can for the learners in our program. They are investing precious time and, in order to respect this, we must make sure we are providing the highest quality service available today. After all, change is inevitable and we must all learn from each other to keep up with this change.
Value
- Value learners’ contributions - Let them know that their contributions are invaluable and proceed to treat them that way.
PD Planning
- Provides framework for PD that leads to teacher change
- Based on what’s needed to improve student outcomes
- Program and individual plans that align with student and teacher needs for learning
Resources and Other Incentives
- Free resources
