In a recent meeting with a small group of teachers we asked them about the professional development at their school. Each teacher glanced around at the others, unsure what to say. With a nervous laugh, one said “Ummm. It’s not that effective?” And the floodgates opened. A series of adjectives and descriptions followed, with teachers calling it boring, saying it was unactionable, and lamenting that they spent most of their time in professional development sessions wanting it to be over. It sounded familiar.
The irony is not lost on us that school districts across the country are changing learning experiences for students without changing how they are training their teachers, so our approach to professional development is different. We aim to make PD fun, design our PD sessions to model ways we would like teachers to teach, and provide choice about what and how leaders and teachers learn. We do our best to make it memorable and actionable. What have we found that works? Here are just a few ways:
This article originally appeared on Getting Smart. Access the full article here.