This post originally appeared on InService, the ASCD community blog. ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization with 160,000 members in 148 countries, including professional educators from all levels and subject areas––superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members. View Original >
We often send teachers and teacher leaders to attend professional development workshops to learn best practices and share ideas—to become part of larger conversations in order to ensure innovation in instructional practice. This is a great intention and a great way to build collaboration, cultivate teacher leadership, and build reflective practice. However, there is a major pitfall that can occur even with this amazing intention. It goes something like this:
A teacher is asked to attend a workshop or training to become an expert in that area. The expectation is that the teacher will then train teachers in that practice, and that, in turn, will lead to good implementation at the team, school, or even district level.
I can’t be kind about this. This is one of the most unrealistic and ineffective practices for professional learning. The intention of providing good professional learning gets lost in translation as it is implemented. Here’s why this doesn’t work:
– There’s an expectation that the teacher, after one dive, is an expert. Teachers will become experts, but only after time—time devoted to their own implementation, design, reflection, and, of course, mistakes. Learning is a process, and to become a master, there must be an extended process of revision and reflection. The teacher must be given additional support and cultivated by a leader of that instructional practice.
– The word “training” comes with baggage that often looks like the “sit and get” type of learning. There is a time and place for a lecture, but good professional learning needs more. It needs collaboration, revision, protocols, data analysis, and the like. Expecting teachers to simply relay the content will not ensure effective implementation.
– Professional learning is being instituted in a “drive by” manner. When a teacher comes back and teaches that content in a short period, the one being taught isn’t provided with ongoing processes and protocols to learn, make mistakes, and grow in practice. Instead, schools should commit to ongoing conversations in professional practice where teachers are given the freedom to fail but also to grow.
– Teachers may or not have “the chops” to facilitate good professional learning. If the intention is to build teacher leaders, then teachers need to be given support and professional learning IN professional learning.
– This type of professional development may just be “another thing.” Often when we ask teachers to come back and share the learning, this is on top of many other initiatives. Imagine that a teacher comes back from one workshop and teaches the staff, and then another teacher comes back and teaches the staff. This could go on and on. We know that “bombardment of initiatives” does not work. Instead a deep dive into targeted learning is needed to ensure reflection, growth, and change in practice (Fullen, Michael. Leadership for the 21st Century: Breaking the Bond of Dependency. Educational Leadership. Volume 55, Number 7. April 1998. 6-10).
Sharing ideas and reflecting is different than expecting effective implementation. It is totally appropriate to have teachers come back from a professional learning experience and share their learning and growth from it. But to expect them to arm their fellow teachers with all the tools needed for effective implementation? That isn’t feasible. Let’s instead commit to professional learning best practices, where the learning is focused, ongoing, reflective, and collaborative. This will lead to sustainable improvement!
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