Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Professional Development
Think about a really bad professional development experience you had, and a really good professional development experience. What made the good one "good" and the bad one "bad"? What steps can principals take to ensure that professional development is "good" and actually has a positive impact on teacher effectiveness?
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What made the good ones “good”?
- Well organized
- Relevant to my professional needs
- Dynamic presenter
- Engaged the audience (Ex: time to discuss with your neighbor or participate in activities)
- Left with quality resources that I could immediately use in the classroom
What made the bad ones “bad”
- Irrelevant to my professional needs
- Unorganized
- Speaker was unprepared
- Did not leave with any relevant information that would improve my teaching
- Boring
- Not what the description said it would be
- Repetition of the “same old information”
What steps can principals take to ensure that professional development is "good" and actually has a positive impact on teacher effectiveness?
- Survey teachers to find their needs
- Give teachers options; every teacher at your school does not necessarily need to attend the same PD.
- Make sure it is aligned with your schools goals and areas of weakness (Ex: Do not send them to a workshop on something they are already doing well)
- Follow up and ask for teacher feedback afterwards
- Have teachers share what they learned with other teachers in the school that did not attend
- Attend with teachers
Janice's post was an excellent start. Instead of repeating I'll add a few additional things:
What made the good ones "good"?
-Choice: let me pick which sessions I want to go to
-Fast paced: I do not like sitting in sessions that drag on; keep things moving so that I know you value my time and so that I can learn as much information as possible
What made the bad ones "bad"?
-Presentation did not fit the size of audience (trying to do small group activities in a group of 50+; leading a group of 15 like they were a group of 50+)
-Poor presentation skills (such as just reading directly off the PowerPoint)
Steps principals can take:
-I think Janice hit about all of them that I can presently think of. When possible it would help to have attended (or someone you trust have attended) the PD previously so you have personal knowledge that it will reach the "good" traits instead of the "bad" traits.
A point to not be missed is Janice adding that principals attend with the teachers. As a teacher if I see the principal there I tend to pay more attention and value it more because I see that they value it and place some importance on it.
When I think about it, most of the professional development I’ve been to has been in the realm of “bad.” What they have in common is that most of them are led by people outside of the teaching profession or who are so far removed from the classroom that their context is very different from what we have today. Also, most of the bad professional developments I’ve experienced are not engaging—they focus on putting teachers down and telling us what we aren’t doing right instead of giving us strategies that we can put to use immediately in our classrooms that should provide positive impact on our students’ learning. For the good professional development experiences? Most have been led by someone familiar to me who either works in my building or in my district—someone who I feel knows my kids and the context in which I teach. The good ones are also led by teachers who request feedback from participants so that they can monitor how well their own lessons were. The BEST professional developments are those that provide useful strategies that teachers can employ the very next day in the classroom and start to see results. Principals should focus their attention on providing their teachers with what they need in PD. They shouldn’t spread themselves too thin by offering so many different PD opportunities that begin and end in one session and are never assessed as to their effectiveness. Principals should offer choices—differentiating PD opportunities to teachers the way that we differentiate instruction to our students.
I agree with Matthew that principals should attend PD and be involved in it with their teachers. Doing so not only gives a better perspective to the principal—trying out the strategies that are suggested to see if they are user-friendly, etc.—but it also gives them a solid foundation when assessing how effective the PD session was.
First professional development needs to be relevant. I am one to try to get the most out of a workshop that might not be presented well but if it has zero impact on what I am doing - that is a waste of time.
The goals for the PD needs to parallel the school’s goals. For example if the school has noticed a significant gap between the LEP student’s reading scores and White students, maybe the new focus for PD is on strategies to improve differentiation to serve this population of students.
I, also, find professional development that is interactive, amongst the participants and between the presenter and the participants to be quality. Being part of any learning situation is much more powerful when people are engaged by listening, reflecting, and sharing.
In addition, professional development that provides concrete ‘action’ for staff to follow through with back in the classroom or with their PLC team is most powerful.
Unfortunately, most of the professional development experiences have been bad. There were many things that contributed to their ineffectiveness. Among them was the fact that presenters, who had either never been teachers or hadn’t had any contact with students in the past 15 years, talked at me instead of to me.
What made the good one "good"?
-Relevance
-Engagement (Talking, moving)
-Connectedness of ideas
-Practical strategies that I could begin implementing immediately
What made the bad one “bad”?
-Presenter read a Powerpoint verbatim
-Boring (participants were expected to learn by listenting—not doing)
-Lack of relevance
-Wasn’t applicable; strategies required the use of technology that wasn’t available at my site
-Hit or miss (no follow-up)
What can principals do to help ensure “good” professional development?
-make it job-embedded
-make it applicable to school’s goals and mission
-provide options
-make it ongoing
Looking back, I have had more bad professional development experiences than good. For the most part the bad ones were the ones required by the district and the good ones were ones I chose to go to on my own. One effect of the numerous bad experiences at my school is that when something good does come along, no one wants to go. Many people view professional development as a waste of their time based on past experiences.
I agree with Latisa, often the PD opportunities that I have been involved in have no follow up or the materials needed to effectively implement the PD are not available to use.
Good PD, as everyone before me has stated needs to be clearly supported from beginning to end. The professional development should also be relevant to the school, my student's needs and/or what I teach. I believe that good PD allows opportunities to use the strategies, materials or changes given during the PD and then provides a question and answer session. The most helpful professional developments opportunities I have been involved in all have been interactive, fun, engaging, easy to implement and useful.
I believe principals can advocate for PD individualized PD opportunities, survey staff to determine group PD topics and show an interest by asking how effective the PD was after the PD.
In my teaching career I have been involved in more bad staff development than good. The bad experiences far outweighed the good and have caused me to see staff development as a negative aspect of teaching.
Good professional development experiences:
-Enthusiastic speakers/excited about the topic and involves group interaction/activities and inspiring
-Relevant content and provides teachers with ways to use strategies in the classroom
-Concise and to the point
-Advocates feedback for improvement
-Grade level focused
-Teacher chosen
Bad professional development experiences:
-Content was not relevant to the needs of the teachers
-Time of the professional development was long and exhausting
-Speakers were not very enthusiastic and motivating
-Lack of interaction with others
-Not practical for teachers
Steps that principals can take to ensure that professional development has a positive impact on teachers:
Principles should research the professional development to see how other districts feel about effectiveness. Also, they should make sure it is applicable to the teachers content and conduct faculty surveys for their professional development to meet their needs. In addition, principals should focus on 3 or 4 strategies- incorporating a limited amount instead of too many at one time. One of the most important things I believe that principals can do is the planning of staff development. For example, planning out and organizing on days where teachers don’t have other priorities, i.e., grades, holidays, weekends, time of year, etc.
Good professional development characteristics
• Informative
• Well Organized
• Engaging
• Interactive
• Fun
• Innovative
Bad professional development characteristics
• Unorganized
• Poor leadership
• Lack of direction
• Discombobulated
• Boring
• Lecture
If principals want to ensure that a professional development is “good” there are a few steps they must make sure they take. Principals should make sure that the session has effective leadership. Principals also must ensure that the proper resources have been allotted to the staff development. These resources must include sufficient time, money, materials and facilities. Finally, principals must support the experience in both word and deed.
Janice's second post makes me wonder if how good a professional development is percieved to be is simply a state of mind. As she stated, the mandatory developments were bad and the chosen developments were good. Perhaps teachers just resent mandates? I think one method that my school successfully uses is to have several staff developments. You must choose to go to one or two. This combines mandate and choice.
“Bad”
•No professional relevance
•Is not researched based; i.e. new math, whole language
•Not well organized
•No “by in” from site leadership and thus faculty-----Presenting development only because mandated from district/county…..on-site administration see it as a waste of time
•Equipment not working
•Room TOO hot
•Taking time from teachers for professional development (Give them time)
•No refreshments
•Inadequate facilities
•No follow-up; For example, did teachers try it? Did it work? Why or Why not? Is there a need for further training? Equipment? Books?
•Presenting an idea…but not the books etc. that are needed to successfully implement it
“Good”
•Has professional relevance
•Is research based
•Has “by in” from leadership
•Is organized
•Comfortable environment
•Provide necessary books etc. that are needed
•Provide basic refreshments
•Clearly and effectively connect content to improving student learning
•Presenter well versed in subject area as well ability to relate to people… specifically teachers and their unique day to day situations
•Has follow-up to assist staff in effectively implementing the program/curriculum etc.
Steps Principals Can Take:
•Ensure professional development is relevant to schools intended outcomes—Improving student learning quantifiable by passing and /or growth shown on mandated assessments
•Make Certain professional development is founded in research…not just the newest fad
•Make Sure there are clear and concise objectives and outcomes
•If possible, at least one administrator should be trained in the PD before faculty---therefore he/she can assist teachers with questions, implementation etc.
•Do not have PD on teacher’s time----give them time for it
•Create an environment conducive for learning: For example, do not place 50 staff members in a room met to fit only 20; ensure all equipment is working adequately; ensure it is not too hot or cold; try and provide refreshments…at the very least water; ensure adequate lighting; faculty have proper seating and writing areas
•Ensure follow-up/feed-back
The good one that I did attend I will be basically repeating what others have said in stating that:
• the presenter really engaged the audience
• the information seemed relevant to my content area, as well as my school and the students in which I teach
• There was an opportunity for discussion as well as having positive feedback provided.
The ones that were bad were not relevant to the content in which I teach or did not seem to provide strategies that I could implement in my classroom. The presentation was boring and did not engage the audience. I felt that the professional development would have been more beneficial if it had been done in a smaller group or groups versus having a large amount of people present.
Some steps that principals can take to ensure good professional development:
• Make sure that the focus is on student learning
• Make sure the professional development would work at my school and with my students
• Make sure that it relates to the content area
• Make sure there is collaborative interaction
• Make sure to provide staff with options
Jennifer I would have to concur with you and Latisa as well in saying that the professional developments that I have attended did not have any follow up as well. I will go a step further in saying that the principal never even asked me anything about the professional development that I attended.
I just like you feel that principals should advocate more individualized professional development and survey the staff to determine which types of professional development opportunities they would be interested in attending.
I think Roderic is on to something: it is, to some extent, in our minds whether it is good professional development or bad. If we enter with a negative attitude then we'll be looking for negative elements of it and thinking of all the things we'd rather be doing. This is an area where I think principals have the best chance of beginning to impact people's opinions of PD. If as principal we align the PD to everything else we're doing, give teachers some choices, and show that it is a priority for even us then (hopefully) teacher mindsets will begin to change.
Also, I like Russ' point about when the PD is done. Does the PD happen at a time when teachers are more concerned with other (often more pressing) items such as grades? Does it happen when teachers are tired and ready for a break? The timing of the PD (not just time of day but also when it happens during the year) can really play into a teacher mindset. A great PD session at a horrible time will be less effective than a great PD session at a more comfortable time.
Characteristics of good PD:
1 relevant
2 delivery style;
3 resource availiablity
4 personal interest
Characteristics of bad PD:
1 delivery style
2 does not support present need
3 little to no interaction
Steps principals can take to ensure PD is good:
1 identify staff needs/desires and target areas of interest
2 use facilitators who are well respected (either locally or in the targeted area)
3 differentiate the PD
4 establish a follow-up process
5 make sure resources are available to implement information received
I began to notice that after reading through everybody's posts, I do not have much new information to add. I find that we are in agreement on most stuff, yet professional development is still a sore subject in most schools. I actually lead a professional development today. I tried to apply many of the principles that we have discussed and read about. I have come to the conclusion that some people will like the professional development and some will hate it. Some will see it as relavent and others as irrelavent. The arguement then amounts to providing choice in professional development. Is it possible to provide enough choice? What if it is over a topic that all teachers need to be aware of?
Good Professional Development
• Targeted my professional needs
• Organized
• Engaging Presentation
• Left me Inspired
Bad Professional Development
• Unorganized
• Not Prepared
• Mandated by Principal
• Not related to any of my professional development needs
Principals must ensure that teachers have options when choosing professional development and following up with teachers to make sure they are trying to use the information they were taught.
"Good"
-Relevant
-Practical Application strategies
-Proven results
-Information to take home
-Engaging: participant involvement, discussion groups, activities
-Refreshments
-Timely
-Organized and Prepared
-Teacher choice
"Bad"
-Lecture format
-Boring presenter
-Irrelevant
-Antidotal
-Lacking practical application
-Reinventing the wheel
-No follow-up
I feel that professional development should be limited to seminars that are statistically proven to improve my instruction. Too much PD is antidotal or based on fuzzy Science and Math. My wife finds it funny some times to read Education journals in comparison to Science journals. It is amazing to me to see how much of the PD in education is based on ideas rather than statistically stable research.
I agree with the posts of what makes a good professional development and what makes a bad one. At the end of the day I feel like people appreciate it when professionals treat them like professionals and incorporate crowd participation to maintain the attention of the audience. Professional development opportunities are best when teachers are able to make the connection to how it would look in their classroom or their daily instruction. Timing is also key because lecture style after a full day of teaching becomes difficult to maintain the teachers focus on individual growth experiences. A number of issues can arise and change the environment or the presentation that is expected to be presented.
Following on what Rod and Janice said about choice. Sometimes that is overrated. A month ago we had a PLC day that was turned into a mandated Professional Development day by DPS. Needless to say the teachers resented it. Social Studies had 4 to 5 different forms of professional development sessions and they all sucked. They sucked because the options weren't much to choose from. The presenters were good and energetic but the topics were boring. So we must be very cautious of choice, because if the qualities of choices are not desirable then we will be left with feelings of frustration and boredom.
David,
You stated that if the quality of the choices we are given is lacking then we will be left with "feelings of frustration and boredom." Although I agree, the overwhelming consensus seems to be that madated professional development isn't working. If we,as professionals are at least presented with choices, we could pick what we think would be the most useful and applicable in our classrooms. I'd rather be given an option and end up with something less desirable than to be required to attend a mass professional development session that has been mandated by the district and doesn't benefit me or any of the other attendees.
Giving teachers choices may not be the answer to "bad" professional development may not be the answer, but allowing professionals to select PD that is relevant and applicable to them sure seems to be a step in the right direction.
About 15 years ago, I attended a professional development training that was on site for our English teachers only. The pedagogical strategies taught for assisting students in improving their reading was relevant, well organized and research based with appropriate follow-up. As English teachers, we were very excited about implementing the strategies in the classroom. After re-tooling my lesson plans, I began practicing what I had been taught. Although it “looked” very different than “traditional” learning, it was highly effective (I must add here…my classroom always looks very different than what is deemed traditional). Our higher scores on reading assessments confirmed this. A few weeks later, my Principal came to observe and evaluate me. After watching what was occurring, he left a note on my desk asking me to visit him in his office later that day. I knew what he was going to say. He did not have the opportunity to join us in our training and did not understand the different approaches we were taking with our students. When I arrived in his office, he was truly mystified as to what I was doing, how it made sense and why it looked so very different (He graduated from college in the early 70’s and felt as though learning “looked” a certain way…i.e. all students sitting quietly, listening to a teacher talk at them, nodding their heads, writing something down every few minutes and waallah there you have it). Once he finished, I produced the documentation, research and a copy of the outline for the professional workshop. He was sincerely embarrassed that, although he signed the $3,000 dollar check to pay for the training, he had no understanding of what was being taught and how it was going to impact his students.
I think a lesson was learned by all that day. It is really important for leaders to understand what types of professional development they are requiring their teachers to undergo as well as ensuring it is in compliance with the schools task at hand….improving the learning of all students. They truly need to be the instructional leader, understanding universal pedagogical strategies as well as pursuing professional development supporting the cultivation of better teaching. This is critical.
I agree with Suzanne that most professional development is led by individuals who are from outside the teaching profession. They have lots of ideas that are impossible to implement in the classroom, but are presented in a fancy format. I believe that master teachers of specific contents should be able to conduct staff development, offering strategies to improve instruction. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how productive professional development could be if it remained in-house with the schools best teachers presenting the information? Just like Suzanne explained, many of these professional development opportunities present new ideas that are not yet proven and are negative toward our teachers’ methods. Why not let successful teachers share their methods with others about what they are doing to help students achieve? This makes me think that the PLC concept may be an answer or alternative to professional development. I also agree with Meg that professional development needs to align with the schools goals and vision statements. Many times staff development involves new ideas that sound good, but have no relevancy to what teachers need or want.
What makes professional development "good"
-relevant to school/teacher
-a reasonable length
-interactive
-teachers have a lead role
What makes professional development "bad"
-poorly organized
-boring
-not useful
-makes teachers feel unprofessional
Steps principals can do to make PD effective
-ask teachers what school needs
-principals are present in pd
-principals provide resources to make pd useful to teachers
Most of the professional development that I have attended has not been good. The best pd that I attended has come from a person that has taught, and still works in settings similar to mine. They did not come with a bunch of results of studies done from other people, but rather came from personal experiences of what works and then taught us how to implement these ideas into our individual classrooms.
I think Roderic's perspective regarding Janice's post was very interesting. I would agree that often the way we "believe" a task is going to be may outweigh the reality. I have attended PD with others who had decided it would be a waste of time prior to arriving. It was no surprise that they felt justified when the PD was completed. I'm not sure that the PD was approached with the mindset needed to find the benefits.
Good Professional Development:
• Relevant for my grade level/subject/needs
• Practical – I can use it the next day!
• Engaging – NOT lecture
Bad Professional development:
• The opposite of the above…
I don’t share the same experiences with bad professional development as others have mentioned. My bad experiences have been PD on subjects that I don’t need but most were presented by people who knew and are working with kids. I attended a great PD series at DUKE last year where 30 DPS teachers were give several mini workshops and were given time to discuss how this could be implemented into our classrooms with the other teachers. These workshops were catered to our different levels.
I think that principal’s need to differentiate PD and should survey teachers to find out what subjects they “think” they need. For the first time this year, our principal did a series of differentiated workshops on each early release day. A pretest was given during the first workshop to split the staff into groups based on the comfort level with Differentiated Instruction (DI). Unfortunately, only a small amount of follow up has been in place. The principal needs to follow up with teachers to see if they are implementing and if not what additional support is needed. The principal needs to attend the PD so they fully understand the expectations and will know when it is being implemented correctly.
There isn’t much I can add but say that I agree with PD being good or bad based on the individuals’ state of mind. If you chose it and it takes place in a comfortable/convenient way, it’s probably going to be in your good list. The good workshop I mentioned in my first post took place at the David Thomas Conference Center. We were paid to attend the different workshops and were offered catered food during each session. Comforts are definitely a perk!
I agree Cyndi, Martinis make all staff development more meaningful
well I guess you did call it "refreshments"
The professional development experiences that have been relevant for me have had the following characteristics:
1. relevant to my grade level
2. practical knowledge or theories that I practice in my classroom
3. differentiated to the needs of certain teachers
4. taught by other teachers or individuals that had experience teaching the material
The irrelevant professional experiences had the following characteristics:
1. irrelevant to my grade level
2. principal as presenter
3. material introduced by lecture
4. redundant material or concepts
Many of the "good" experiences I have had were taught by teachers that had been to excellent workshops or had experiences they thought would be relevant to specific teachers in our building. The "bad" experiences of professional development have been taught by our principal and have been mandated by our district office. Many of us feel the material is redundant and irrelevant to our needs' as educators.
After reading many of the comments I have concluded that most of us agree that differentiated professional development has proven to be "good" professional development.
In my district most of the staff development we receive is provided "in house" because of the economic situation our schools are in. Therefore, our principal presents most of professional development. Although his intentions are meaningful, the topics or materials are not.
I have found that the most relevant and useful professional development has been taught by teachers. I believe teachers should be able to attend certain workshops and bring their knowledge back to their grade levels during professional learning committee times. If the material is important for the entire school's staff then, teachers should present the information to everyone during faculty meetings.
Gwen, I love what your principal did to differentiate the PD. And I agree, follow-up is so important. I
wonder though, how many of the PD events can a principal attend? I am asking because I know, I too have been one to criticize principals that didn't "keep up" with all the new initiatives. Leadership is such a challenging position.
The hours devoted to do your job and the hours required to keep up with all the new information, whew!
How much is feasible/realistic?
A good professional development that I went through was focused on learning. The professional development took place over an extended period of a year. The training and project were closely tied to the school improvement plan goals. As a result, there was funding and a tremendous buy-in from the administrative team of the school, and also from administrators in the county and district offices.
The project itself promised to be useful to the staff from the very beginning. The staff were very interested in investing time and energy into learning how they could benefit from the training. The training and experience of actually conducting the project gave us the opportunity to be leaders. Whatever the staff learned was available for immediate implementation with the students and brought about significant results in both staff morale and team spirit, as well as in student achievement. The results were so encouraging that the staff continued to invest even more time and energy into the learning process. It really was a winning situation for all involved parties, the students and therefore their families, the staff, and for the administrators.
On the other hand, a professional development that I have had to attend, one that has not been effective for me, has been one where I was required to attend because everyone in the county was required to attend. It was certainly not specialized to my duties as a classroom teacher, and had no provisions for delivering knowledge to the different levels of learners attending. For example, I have sat in on numerous meetings they have held, where the level of the presentation was too high for me to even relate with what was being discussed. As a result, I have not enjoyed the sessions I have attended and have found that the sessions did not impart any knowledge to me that I could bring back to the classroom to impact student learning in a positive way.
I think another consideration is whether professional development should be differentiated as much as it is. A certain level of differentiation is good because it helps to train the different specialties/grade level strategies etc. However, too much may not always be such a good thing as the focus could easily shift away from training the staff so they can take methods back to improve student learning to differentiating for other irrelevant reasons, such as to justify the existence of the numerous job titles that exist, or the many ways in which the central office finds ways to justify its funding needs.
To ensure that your staff is getting relevant, effective professional development administrators should survey the staff to understand their needs/desires. It is also important for administration to do some research regarding the quality of the workshop or presenter prior to sending their staff to the development. To help get the most for your money, it is helpful to have the attendee return to school and teach others what they learned. Administration should also consider every aspect of a program before engaging their staff in certain staff developments. For example, everyone at my school attended a Smart Board training that lasted 4-5 hours, however, we never received Smart Boards at our school—what a waste of time. Administration should be committee to all aspects of a program prior to offering staff development.
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