Planning an Effective PD Program - Personalized, Flexible & Blended

Effective professional development is ongoing and "job embedded".  Not all professional development should be whole-group workshops with a presenter.  Some schools schedule as little as one day of professional development per year - right before school starts.  Others schedule several days per year beginning with a few days right before school starts;  usually 2 or 3 days are devoted to school district business, perhaps one day for a workshop with a consultant, and the rest are devoted to teacher "work days".  

When working with a consultant schools usually schedule on a day which the district has dedicated to professional development, a day when students have no school;  the entire faculty attends a whole-group workshop.  Most school districts schedule 2 days per year for these events, one in the Fall and another in the Spring.  

Honestly, there is not much that can be done in one day's time that will enable the teachers to make significant change- without follow-up support.   Authentic learning takes time.  And support.  Excellent strategies and information can be delivered to a faculty, and done so in an innovative, interactive, hands-on manner, in one day.  Two days is much better.  But then the teachers must take this new strategy and implement it.  It is not going to be implemented perfectly the first try, or the second, etc.  Mistakes will occur - and that is good - and new questions and realizations will arise.  Then it is time for the additional support and follow-up.  

Abandon the One-Shot, Scattergun, Drive-by Models of PD and make learning real for the teachers.  They need it, and they deserve it.  The practice of bringing in various consultants to do one-day presentations on an array of popular topics is actually the same paradigm which believes that teaching is the act of delivering (usually via lecture) bits of knowledge to students, and that learning is time-based.  

Many times I have gone to a school to do a workshop with the teachers before the school year begins. Sometimes the workshop was scheduled the day before school begins.  Instead of being relaxed and having fun and learning, the teachers' minds were focused on everything they still had to do to be prepared for the students arriving in the morning.  They were stressed, and they did not learn.

Teachers should attend summer professional development weeks in advance of school starting.  Once they have attended the workshop they then need time to process what they have learned and time to integrate it into their plans.  It is very likely that they will need to devote a great deal of time to researching resources, locating or obtaining materials, planning new activities, writing lesson plans, developing corresponding assessments and identifying/documenting standards.

Districts can create a professional development program which is much more effective, and which will actually create the kind of results they desire - better teaching.   Better curriculum and instruction leads to higher levels of student motivation, engagement, learning, grades, attendance, test scores and graduation rates!

Professional Development that is Blended - Personalized - Flexible 

The goal should be to design and implement a multi-modal, blended program of professional development. This provides teachers with the same personalization and flexibility that the school itself offers the students!

Some creativity and flexibility will allow you to provide your faculty and staff with truly effective professional development that gets results!  Every PD event does not have to be with the entire staff;  it does not have to require a day when students are not at school;  it does not have to require large numbers of substitute teachers.   In a blended PD program some of the PD will take place on-site at the campus, while some will be online.  We recommend taking advantage of the following modes of PD when working with a consultant.

On-Site

• Whole-group summer workshops/intensives, duration of 5 days, at least 6 weeks before school starts.
• Classroom Observation and Coaching - a consultant can learn a great deal about the specific needs of each teacher by conducting classroom observations, which are then the basis for personalized coaching.
• Small Group or Team Time - for any purpose, including curriculum/PBL design.  Getting to know the teachers individually greatly increases the effectiveness of the professional development.  This can be done by simply meeting with small groups of teachers for 60-90 minutes.  
• One-on-One consulting as needed
• Launching and supporting Professional Learning Communities
• Developing and supporting teams of Experts in Residence on each campus - in our model, every teacher on the campus is an Expert in Residence.  Everyone is an expert at something, and everyone supports everyone else - no hierarchy to engender feelings of insecurity or jealousy (that is not mentioned very much but it is a constant.)

Online

• Email support
• Online discussion support (utilizing  a web site where all the teachers develop and discuss their PBL units, etc.)
• Phone support
• Virtual sessions - short, 60-120 minute sessions when needed for up to 5 people at a time using Google Hangout
• Teacher Portfolios
• Professional Learning Communities online support
• Support of Experts in Residence

Coming soon - designing your PD plan!