Appreciate this post and the new acronym :). One thing I spend a lot of time thinking about is WHO should be leading most PD...I always end up come back to teachers not only they are the most effective messengers for other teachers, but also because they have actual experience doing the thing in the classroom, which is presumably the goal of all of this.
I've been experimenting with a "Teachers Teach Teachers" model this winter, where we convene a one hour Zoom meeting around a particular literacy topic (led by a teacher or two), watch instructional clips from the classrooms, and discuss and answer questions. There's still a lot of work to be done here in refining the model, but would be curious for your or Sarah's thoughts?
Throw in the ridiculous PD sessions about learning how to destress (because apparently I'm not a full grown adult who can't figure this out myself) and you nailed it.
I went to a mandatory "keynote speaker" PD session this past week. They literally made us sing a hello neighbor song that my 4yo daughter would have loved. I teach high school. It was absolutely insulting.
The explosion of money-grabbing, for-profit SEL PD companies (which I'm assuming this "hello neighbor" person is associated with, although I could be wrong!) is infuriating and immoral. Walking out in protest seems necessary
It's actually a music therapy group. It was PD for all special education teachers so the company itself was sort of appropriate if they actually talked about what they did with kids, but instead they sang and insisted we do box breathing. It angered me that my taxes paid for that.
Dignified, relevant, actionable and valuable all great words to describe strong professional development.... In my experiences, PD is more actionable if the presenter can share their experiences in doing whatever it is they are presenting on. In that way teachers are aware of the possible problems that arise and how to solve them. I would add that also quality professional development has reflection and curiosity baked into the session...that makes follow up more likely in my experiences.
I agree--that recent teaching experience can make for a successful workshop. I'm curious, what is your thinking behind the date 2018? In the end though, I have attended workshops where the presenter didn't have all of these elements and they were still excellent. I think an excellent presenter always pays attention to their audience and is a great listener and connector and is able to answer the questions and concerns of the people in the audience. Sometimes they can do only that and they are still excellent. (I have had researchers for example present who spend very little time in classroom give me great ideas.). If I leave with one or two new thoughts or ideas to try, I am also happy.
There have been so many changes in the past five years - covid, the explosion of TikTok/cell phone addiction, and emerging AI. Only someone who has taught in the before times (2018-2019), through covid, and through this AI emergence can really understand the whiplash teachers have felt and their classroom experiences today.
Of course there are always exceptions. I suppose it is possible that folks with little classroom experience can have great ideas for the classroom, but (in my experience) that is exceedingly rare. As a history teacher, I do love to hear about CONTENT from historians who aren't in the classroom, but that is a different thing than a workshop touting to offer specific classroom ideas.
I think my biggest issue is the proliferation of SEL workshops from non-classroom teachers.
Yes, that is interesting to think about how a different purpose of a workshop might shift the experience that the presenter needs to successfully do it! I do agree that a workshop geared on classroom ideas should be filled with recent classroom application. In my experience that is the best way to translate research into practice.
Neal Conan, host of NPR's Talk of the Nation for 11 years, summed it up like this:
"Tell me what's important, and don't waste my time with stupid stuff.""
Appreciate this post and the new acronym :). One thing I spend a lot of time thinking about is WHO should be leading most PD...I always end up come back to teachers not only they are the most effective messengers for other teachers, but also because they have actual experience doing the thing in the classroom, which is presumably the goal of all of this.
I've been experimenting with a "Teachers Teach Teachers" model this winter, where we convene a one hour Zoom meeting around a particular literacy topic (led by a teacher or two), watch instructional clips from the classrooms, and discuss and answer questions. There's still a lot of work to be done here in refining the model, but would be curious for your or Sarah's thoughts?
Wrote about it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/scienceofreadingclassroom/p/teachers-teach-teachers-our-approach?r=1fbdh5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Throw in the ridiculous PD sessions about learning how to destress (because apparently I'm not a full grown adult who can't figure this out myself) and you nailed it.
I went to a mandatory "keynote speaker" PD session this past week. They literally made us sing a hello neighbor song that my 4yo daughter would have loved. I teach high school. It was absolutely insulting.
Omg, half our staff would have walked out, lol.
This was the very start of the PD day. I activity refused to participate in anyway and left halfway through the day.
The explosion of money-grabbing, for-profit SEL PD companies (which I'm assuming this "hello neighbor" person is associated with, although I could be wrong!) is infuriating and immoral. Walking out in protest seems necessary
It's actually a music therapy group. It was PD for all special education teachers so the company itself was sort of appropriate if they actually talked about what they did with kids, but instead they sang and insisted we do box breathing. It angered me that my taxes paid for that.
This was the very start of the PD day. I activity refused to participate in anyway and left halfway through the day.
Dignified, relevant, actionable and valuable all great words to describe strong professional development.... In my experiences, PD is more actionable if the presenter can share their experiences in doing whatever it is they are presenting on. In that way teachers are aware of the possible problems that arise and how to solve them. I would add that also quality professional development has reflection and curiosity baked into the session...that makes follow up more likely in my experiences.
But only if that teaching experience has been in the past five years. If a presenter last taught in 2018, they don’t know!
I agree--that recent teaching experience can make for a successful workshop. I'm curious, what is your thinking behind the date 2018? In the end though, I have attended workshops where the presenter didn't have all of these elements and they were still excellent. I think an excellent presenter always pays attention to their audience and is a great listener and connector and is able to answer the questions and concerns of the people in the audience. Sometimes they can do only that and they are still excellent. (I have had researchers for example present who spend very little time in classroom give me great ideas.). If I leave with one or two new thoughts or ideas to try, I am also happy.
There have been so many changes in the past five years - covid, the explosion of TikTok/cell phone addiction, and emerging AI. Only someone who has taught in the before times (2018-2019), through covid, and through this AI emergence can really understand the whiplash teachers have felt and their classroom experiences today.
Of course there are always exceptions. I suppose it is possible that folks with little classroom experience can have great ideas for the classroom, but (in my experience) that is exceedingly rare. As a history teacher, I do love to hear about CONTENT from historians who aren't in the classroom, but that is a different thing than a workshop touting to offer specific classroom ideas.
I think my biggest issue is the proliferation of SEL workshops from non-classroom teachers.
Yes, that is interesting to think about how a different purpose of a workshop might shift the experience that the presenter needs to successfully do it! I do agree that a workshop geared on classroom ideas should be filled with recent classroom application. In my experience that is the best way to translate research into practice.