Mar 4, 2011

Just to Clarify…

What exactly is Professional Development? So many teachers don’t fully understand it. Even those who have participated in years of PD sessions still ask the question “Why can’t we just work on our rooms on these days?” As the art department facilitator in my district I hear this from teachers in and out of my content area. Maybe they have a point, especially if the PD was not engaging or applicable. The truth is, we all kind of wish we could have a full day of planning, however that is definitely not the purpose of professional development. So, I thought I would clarify.

Professional Development IS:

A time to learn something new to apply to your teaching. New Learning! If you already knew it everything, then you would not need professional development!
Time to get those inspirational “pie in the sky” ideas. Even if you only take one thing away from a new idea, it is a seed that may be planted and grow in the future to help your teaching.
Time to apply what you are learning directly to your teaching: Good PD should translate directly into your teaching. It’s a time to learn strategies that work and are usable.
A time to reflect: how am I doing as an educator? What can I improve upon in my teaching? Who can help me to get where I want to be?
A time to collaborate with others to bring out the best in your new ideas, new learning and future intentions for that learning.

Professional Development IS NOT:

Time to work in your room, lesson plan by yourself, or hang artwork in the halls.
A waste of time. Good PD should value your time and good PD should apply directly to your teaching area. If it doesn’t, then you need to advocate for your own PD, because I truly believe that you know what you need and are interested in better than anyone. (Which is why I send out surveys to my team periodically to help me plan the best PD I can for THEM)

To clarify even further, Professional Development is not always perfect, but as a facilitator I always try to provide clear outcomes, meaningful tasks and objectives, a little fun and team building and something to have at the end of the day as an outcome or artifact that can be taken and used directly in the classroom, and for the most part, I feel our Professional Development days are successful.

Do you agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear!

http://www.inartclass.blogspot.com angie

I never considered asking for my own professional development all those years that I sat through math workshops. Other times, the specials teachers were allowed to go work in their rooms. I loved the district, but I really didn’t learn much from those days. My current school system does things a bit differently, so there is a bit more freedom.
- http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com Jessica Balsley
  
  Angie- I think freedom is a good thing as long as you know and can advocate for what you want and need out of your PD. Just by following and writing blogs we can really learn a lot on our own.
http://www.educationcloset.com Susan Riley

Hey Jessica….I am organizing my next ezine issue of VIA and would love for your to write a short article about professional development using items from this past week’s blog entries. Would you be interested in that? If so, email me and let me know so that I can put you into the issue!
- http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com Jessica Balsley
  
  Great, Susan! I’ll be in touch.
http://plbrown.blogspot.com/ phyl

Professional development – arghh. In our district, the “model” we have subscribed to for the past 1/2 dozen years or so, “Learning Focused”, may be terrific for the new classroom teacher or many secondary subject area teachers, but the structure, while offering some tools I can use, is not practical or designed for the elementary art teacher. The lessons are structured for information, for a concrete solution, not for process or exploration. I have never once seen the words “creativity” or “visual arts” in their literature. During training, when I tried to engage the trainer to help me mold the process to what I do, she was at a loss to help and kept putting me off. The program especially is not designed for classes that may meet once a week for 1/2 hour or 45 minutes, where you don’t have the time to spend doing “foldables” and “think/pair/share” but want to get right to it: the hands-on art activity. Nor is it designed for people like us art teachers who don’t like to teach things the same way each year, but like to “change it up” with new things all the time.

So I cringe at the words ‘professional development’ because the district focuses only on the core academics and leaves the rest of us wasting time trying to be on good behavior. Years ago we got all art teachers from neighboring districts together to meet and share ideas. (We are all tiny districts w/one or two art teachers each). It was fabulous and of course my district therefore decided not to participate any more. So yeah, I’ll admit that I’d rather hang another bulletin board or clean my room than sit through another “Learning Focused” training session.
S. Brooks

Jessica – I just saw this link on ASCD Newsletter, and thought of you…Enjoy!

“Education blogger Dave Orphal writes about a future in which teacher development and evaluations are modeled after formative-assessment strategies — one has been outlined by ASCD Chief Program Development Officer Dr. Judy Zimmy at the group’s national conference. This new future would include professional-learning communities, online options and differentiated instruction for educators at all levels of their careers, Orphal writes.”

http://learning2030-orphal.blogspot.com/2011/03/future-of-teacher-professional.html