Read Jennie Magiera’s words aloud and imagine they are your words.
“Differentiated. Relevant. Engaging. These are all words used to describe quality instruction. Yet how ironic is it that they so rarely describe the professional development of teachers. Most of the time we are talked at for several hours on a Saturday morning, or in the afternoon after a long day in the classroom, with nothing to engage us but a conciliatory bowl of candy. This would not stand in our classrooms, so why does it with teacher PD?”
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_ahead/2012/05/the_bionic_pd_half_live_-_half_digital.html
Weren’t you about to say the same things as Ms. Magiera? Too often, professional development for classroom teachers is not a best practices event, but demonstrates an expectation that “do as I say, not as I do” is good enough for educators who know better. This is hypocrisy personified.
Ms. Magiera makes a compelling argument for “bionic PD.” She exemplifies a generation of teachers who use social media, on-demand digital information, and continuous and spontaneous interactive communications to share thoughts with their peers. She values real as well as virtual “in-person interactions” through which she can actively engage in advancing her personal learning.
“So what I propose is for districts to consider a hybrid approach: a differentiated, relevant, and engaging live PD to whet teachers’ curiosities and ignite their passions, then an online platform for teachers to continue to learn and pursue their new thirst for knowledge.”
So, what might this look like.
Differentiated professional development should acknowledge that each adult learner has similarities to each child learner in a classroom; each will respond positively to quality instruction. Best practice does not treat all learners the same. We do not lecture large groups of K-12 students in a sterile environment expecting each child to develop her own connections to the presentation. Differentiated PD connects with , creates professional learning communities, and treats each community effectively.
Relevant PD assesses the needs of each professional relative to the goals of the organization and builds an extended design for each learner. Best practice instruction blends readiness to learn with required to learn.
Fisher and Frey write about the gradual release of responsibility for learning. Like a classroom teacher, the professional has a responsibility to teach not just to present. At the same time, teacher/learners have a responsibility to engage with the PDer making a commitment to integrate and apply what they learn.
http://www.glencoe.com/glencoe_research/Jamestown/gradual_release_of_responsibility.pdf
The release of responsibility for learning looks like this.
https://www.mheonline.com/_treasures/pdf/douglas_fisher.pdf
Effective professional development is not about telling learners what they should know, accepting applause at the end of the session, and sending learners back to their work place to make progress independently. Effective PD assumes initial responsibility for instruction/learning and assists the professional learner to responsibly use and integrate new learning. As the Fischer and Frey models are being applied to student instructional practices related to the Common Core Standards, does it not make sense that it also should be applied to PD for teachers learning to teach the Core?
And, the concept of a professional meeting should be completely rethought. A PD meeting(s) that is about causing professionals to develop would:
1. Provide professional learners with the meeting objectives and all information that would be non-interpretatively presented at the meeting prior to the meeting. Information should be shared digitally and through social media. Learners can profitably ingest this material before attending the meeting.
2. Use the meeting for an interactive discussion of
a. what does the information mean and
b. why does the information matter.
Use professional learning communities within the meeting to raise and answer questions that clarify learners’ understandings of “meaning and matter.”
3. After the meeting, use social media to share the escalating understanding and application of presented and shared information among members of a PLC and between PLCs.
4. Assertively push for mastery of professional learning. If the goal of professional development is not mastery, then the goal is not worth a professional’s time.
The reform of K-12 education should be paralleled by a re-development of the professional training required for those reforms.