Choice in Professional Development

In college, I distinctly remember a professor reading me PowerPoint slides about how students don’t actually learn when teachers just read slideshow presentations. I wish I was making it up, but it’s absolutely true.

Though much of that class was incredibly frustrating for me, it turns out she was wrong about one thing that day. This day, yes the diligent reading of PowerPoint slides, might be the clearest lesson I remember from my education classes, but not because of anything she set out to do. I remember what she said because of the experience it brought me into (unfortunately for her, that was me staring blankly at my classmates wondering silently why we were paying college tuition for this).

Fast forward a few years with me.

I’m an assistant principal now, and I’m a big believer in the idea that giving students choices and providing them with a “just right” challenge makes learning relevant and accessible for all learners (no matter what age). As much as I’ve circled around those ideas, it was time to model that for the staff.

The goal I set was simple: create a memorable experience that demonstrates the power of choice in learning. For the day to be a success, that has to happen. In addition, I hope the their learning experience serves a model that could be easily transferred to the classroom (all of it or the parts of it that fit well).

With a bit of trepidation, I’d like to share how I hope to make that happen (at least as it is right now). This is what our morning on the Thursday before school will look like:

Everyone will attend three sessions of their choosing. We’ll follow that with a break and a debrief and discussion time. The whole process will take three hours.

Sessions will be classified as presentations (traditional delivery), conversations (flat leadership, plan to participate), and maker sessions (just what it sounds like). We’ll likely have about 20% presentations, 50% conversations, and 30% maker sessions. Teachers will choose three sessions to attend (mix and match however the schedule allows) over the first two hours.

Admittedly, this is not as wide open as choice gets. There are great ways to push the bounds of open choice further with a genius hour or an EdCamp for campus PD, but those aren’t exactly what I’m looking for. Choice is a familiar idea, and the timing isn’t right to drop something brand new on the staff.

Here’s a tentative schedule of the sessions. We’ll have inspirational videos, tips from our social emotional learning team, conversations on topics all teachers struggle with, time to make thank you or You Matter cards, and I’ve even toyed around with having an open gym for a session. I’m probably most excited about three student led sessions that I expect to be quite popular. Overall, the hope is to have every session focus on knowledge, skills, or motivation that will help teachers on the first day or during the first week (though a few might not be realized until later in the first month).

After teachers complete their sessions, we’ll have a short break before coming back together to debrief and discuss their experience. During that time, we’ll reflect on these questions:

• How was this morning like your students’ learning experience? How was it different?
• What impact does the timing of this PD have on you? How does that impact your concern for pressures students face? (This is currently scheduled for the Thursday before school begins on a Monday.)
• What ways did your choices this morning differentiate for your interests? Your ability level? Your sense of urgency about outside concerns?
• What did you end up learning that you can share with your colleagues?

My hope is that the morning creates a time where teachers have a chance to really choose what they need. Maybe they’ve been presenting all week and what they need is to be on the receiving end of some PD. Maybe they don’t need anyone to tell them what to do, but they do have some questions they need help with. Maybe they need to hear from those students in the student led sessions before they start the year. Maybe they need the uplifting, inspirational shot in the arm. Maybe they’re all thought out by Thursday morning and they need to do something with their hands that will still impact students positively.

I don’t know exactly what they need, but they certainly don’t all need the same things.

I also hope this honors the challenges we put on our teachers throughout the year. Be engaging. Differentiate for all students. Make sure your students are writing in class. Keep up with all your paperwork. And the list goes on…

We do our teachers a disservice when our PD fails to model best practices. (tweet this)

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My challenge to you isn’t to make PD sessions on choice.

Your people all need something different. The challenge is to figure out what the teachers need on your campus and try something new (even something that might fail) in front of the staff at the beginning of the year that will stretch you and them. Be willing to ask this question: what sort of learning would keep teachers from looking at the time wondering, When can I get into my room to work?

Before it’s too late, share what you create. Don’t wait until you can revise it based on what you know worked (or so you can leave it as a draft if the whole things blows up).

Your work can serve as both inspiration to others and a point of departure as we explore how to serve teachers well through professional development.