Reason #10: Why Didn't You Ask Me What I Needed?

We say we believe in differentiated instruction.  We say that we want to meet the needs of all students.  However, too often in professional development, schools require teachers to learn the exact same information.  It might be quality training, too.  However, for a teacher who has already mastered the concepts, this type of training feels irrelevant.

Why learn this if it's not an issue in my classroom?  

Why learn this in a way that treats first grade and eighth grade teachers as though they are the same?

Why can't I learn in a way that relates to the direct needs of my own classroom context?

Differentiated Professional Development
Oftentimes schools take this reality and shift toward differentiated instruction.  It sounds like a great idea.  The staff might have five or six options for a weekly professional development.  They become mini-classes that allow teachers to delve deeper into a particular concept.  However, this model tends to fail for the following reasons:

• It doesn't relate to what each teacher needs 
• The focus is on teacher interest rather than student needs
• There are too few options
• The PD planners are trying to guess what teachers need rather than allow them to make their own decisions

Customized Learning
A better solution would be for teachers to create their own professional development based upon an identified need in their own classrooms.  For example, a teacher might struggle with classroom management.  This teacher could attend a differentiated professional development class.  However, he or she might also choose to embrace a coaching model (if another teacher could model it in the classroom), peer observation, a book study, a video and a Twitter chat on the subject.

Instead of offering a menu of options, administrators could create a format where teachers could develop their own professional growth plan.  This could then set up new structures for book studies, small group classes and peer modeling (give up a few preps and then get your preps back during formal PD times).

The idea here is to keep it student-centered and empower teachers to take ownership of their own learning.

Reason #9: Teachers Are Scared

"Why do teachers avoid using technology tools in a math class?" I ask a group of 21st Century Classroom teachers.

I expect to hear about education paradigms, kill-and-drill instruction or a lack of motivation.  I wonder if the issue is a lack of technological knowledge or a confusion about theory and content.  However, none of the teachers mention these ideas.

"Teachers are scared that a slower, tech-integrated pace will get them into trouble with principals."

"I was scared that the balanced math wouldn't transfer to the standardized tests."

Finally, I bring up my own story, "Fear was a big barrier for me.  I took the plunge and wondered if creativity, critical thinking and technology would work in math.  But I knew I'd be crushed if I crashed.  I knew it would cut to the core of what I believe about teaching.  It would be an attack on who I am.  Crazy, huh?"

Teachers begin sharing their own internal conflict, with the concept of fear as a common theme.  The hard part is that the villain wasn't a person.  It was an ideology.  It was a political structure.  It was the culture of fear created by standardized education.

Why aren't teachers being more innovative?

Why aren't they using project-based learning?

Why aren't they integrating technology?

Why aren't they making critical paradigm shifts?

The issue isn't motivation.  Teachers aren't looking for reasons why they should use technology.  Often they aren't even looking for new strategies or killer apps (though I personally don't think apps should be killing people).  Instead, they are looking for permission.  Permission to be.  Permission to do.  Permission to collaborate and innovate and advocate meaningful learning.

When you tell a teacher, "here's a great technology tool that you can use for this project" and then you say, "you need to pay close attention to the data and pass the test," there is a reasonable fear that the authentic way won't transfer to the kill-and-drill tests.

If we want professional development to be meaningful, we need to think about how this transfers to an education system shaped by fear.  We need to think about self-efficacy and the affective nature of learning.

Reason #8: Let Me Use a Laptop

I understand why principals ban laptops in staff meetings.  After all, teachers may be tempted to go on Twitter, check Facebook or rewrite their Fantasy Football roster.  If a leader wants the staff's full attention, a computer is a very real distraction.  

It seems, however, that banning a technology tool only serves to take care of the surface issues while avoiding the root causes of staff apathy during trainings.  After all, walk into a non-tech staff meeting and you'll see teachers grading papers, passing notes, doodling or, most often, playing Buzzword Bingo.  

Why do teachers prefer Facebook or note-passing? Could it be that they thrive on social interaction?  Why do teachers rewrite their Fantasy Football drafts or sketch random pictures?  Could it be that they want to be creative?  Perhaps we should look at all of the "off task" behaviors that occur during professional development meetings and ask why they appeal to our deeper human needs. 

What if we designed trainings so that they were social, creative and relevant? If we kept the notion of motivation in mind, PD designers would not have to spend time worrying about teachers being off-task.  Fantasy Football doesn't seem quite so appealing when we're creating a curriculum together.  Similarly, note-passing feels irrelevant when we're delving deeper into the questions of what it means to lead a classroom. 

Moreover, what if we redesigned professional development to incorporate these tools instead of banning them? What if we asked students to create podcasts and videos, access online tutorials, join discussions on a social network or participate in a school-based Twitter chat?  

Reason #07: Don't Be a Decemberist

I don’t like the Decemberists. I’m geeky. I love books. Yes, I understand their varied allusions to obscure literary figures. And yet, I can’t stand their music. Instead of allowing knowledge to be a gateway to understanding, they use it to form a gated community, with a big invisible sign reading, “If you’re enough of a geeky trendy hipster, you get to enjoy our tunes.”

I like indie bands that remain indie, not because they are so elusive, but because they refuse to conform. I love storytellers that recognize the democracy of humanity; who manage to avoid talking down to their listeners while avoiding pretentious jargon. I don’t pretend it’s easy, but when it happens, it’s beautiful.

So, I’m at a professional development session. The speaker launches into a long PowerPoint explaining why he’s the most qualified, credentialed badass to show me how to differentiate my instruction. He offers his allusions to Marzano and Freire and even manages a decent out-of-context quote from Dewey.

He’s a Decemberist.

I don’t mind theory. I don’t mind scholarly journals. I’m geeky. I enjoy academic endeavors. However, if you want to reach me, don’t use your knowledge as a pretentious gated community that I can’t join. If you want me to grow as a teacher, you need to use your wisdom as a gateway. If you want me to listen to your story, tell it honestly, humbly and humanely.

Don’t talk down to me. Instead, reach out to me.

Don’t explain why you know everything. Instead, admit what you don’t know.

Don’t use advanced language to describe simple concepts. Instead, use common language to explain complex concepts.

Ditch the Decemberist approach and take a cue from Sufjan Stevens. Tell a story with grace and simplicity. Let your voice guide people humbly and teachers will be open to sustainable change.

Reason #6: Embrace a Commons

The speaker drones on through the Power Point, hoping that the audience will scribble notes and transfer the expert ideas into practice.  She's not a bad speaker - engaging, interesting, a little cornball in her humor, but she keeps our attention.  

I keep thinking of the people in the room.  She has no idea that the language arts teacher to my left is a master at differentiated instruction.  She has these rotating learning centers on the peripheral of her classroom that allow students to choose the help they need in the modality that they prefer.  The speaker talks of discourse, but if we really want to see discourse in action, we should visit Javi's class, where the students guide the critical thinking questions.  

Collectively, we don't lack the skills.  What we lack is a platform to share these ideas in a safe place, with deep questions and a horizontal system of collaboration.   We need to recover a sense of the teacher's commons.

*      *      *

Pseudo-reformers have hijacked one of the most democratic terms in our lexicon and turned it into a tool for standardization.  Originally, the notion of common, meant shared.  The public commons was a place for debate, for leisure, for the open exchange of ideas and social interaction.  It was the public square that managed to balance the collective values of the public while respecting the rights of the individual.  

We still retain the notion of a commons in ideas like Creative Commons or in conversations about teaching as a common craft.  Yet, within the context of a school system, the notion of "common" is often reduced to a heavy-handed, hierarchichal mandate of tests, training and curriculum.  

We need to recover the of a shared set of a knowledge, an open exchange of ideas or a mental and physical space for democracy. 

*      *      *

A few years back, I had the chance to pilot a different format of professional development.  I began with a notion of a teachers commons.  It wasn't my idea.  It just sort-of emerged from an initial needs assessment I had conducted.  Here's what I learned in the process:

• Define the space: I began with a slogan, "connect, create, collaborate."  It sounded great to me, but the group quickly changed the concept to "a place to share."  
• A hybrid model works best: the teachers commons was a mental space where we shared, a physical location of our meetings and an online space where we shared ideas and resources.  We used the name Teachers Commons as a basis for our mini-community that developed. 
• Be flexible: Initially, I had all kinds of methods I expected people to use.  However, the group hated the wikis and preferred Google Docs.  They weren't fond of sharing on IM, but they loved leaving comments on blogs.  We liked an open meeting format for discussion, but some teachers really wanted an agenda for our PD sessions. I quickly realized that it had to grow organically.
• Allow teachers to participate in the commons outside of PD time, but don't require it.  Some teachers liked the notion of adding resources or asking questions to the group during their weekend lesson planning.  Others liked the idea that the community existed only during the structured PD time.  
• Make it aesthetically pleasing.  I know, I know, this sounds lame.  But the physical room, the hang-out space as well as the blog (or whatever platform one chooses) should create a sense of atmosphere.  Part of why people hate professional development is that it often requires them to sit on hard plastic chairs under the incessant buzzing of the fluorescent lights.

Reason #5: Let Me Use My PLN

I had coffee with a friend who works for another district.  At some point, we got into a discussion about blended reading and the question of balancing student autonomy with state standards.

"I wish I could run my classroom closer to a PLN," he explained.

"I know.  It would be cool if we could have a totally customized learning experience."

"Maybe that's our journey.  Maybe that's the next step past differentiated instruction."

The conversation trailed off into the boring professional development he had attended the day before.  "It's not that it was awful, but it was irrelevant.  It was, verbatim, the exact same training I went to last year."

"On what topic?"

"Online safety."

The Solution

Why does professional development need to be limited by district-controlled mandates?  Why does it have to be a rigid track of pre-planned lessons?  What if teachers could customize what they learn?  What if they could move beyond simply sitting through lessons and into the area of developing a Personal Learning Network?

I recognize that schools would need to create structures to ensure accountability.  However, it might work well if teachers could develop a Personal Learning Plan based upon the concept of a PLN. Teachers could create their own objectives, essential questions, lists of resources, choices of at-school professional development and final project/creation.  Administrators could create a menu of options to streamline the process for teachers.

Or not.

A Personal Learning Plan would vary depending upon the context.  However, it seems that schools are missing out on a huge learning opportunity when they fail to recognize the power of a PLN.


Here's a video describing what a PLN means to me:


Here's a video about starting a PLN:

Reason #4: If It's a Workshop, Let Me Make Something

For me, the term "workshop" conjures up images of candy canes and elves and the creation of something magical. When I don't think of elves, I'm thinking of The Old Yankee Workshop and what it means to spend some time crafting something enduring and beautiful.  Thus, when I hear that we will be attending a workshop, I initially hope that we'll be creating something.

Instead, I sit in a room full of round tables, filling out sheets in a binder without having much of a chance to ask how this information applies to my classroom.  Sometimes I'll write notes to myself like, "When you get back, try this type of learning center."  However, by the time I get back, I am exhausted and I don't want to think about my classroom.

Don't get me wrong.  I try to engage with the speaker.  I ask questions.  I take notes.  I am generally well-behaved.  However, eventually this cracks.  Eventually the creative impulse breaks through and I'm gone.  If the workshop information is new, I'll take what I'm learning and begin writing a lesson plan.  Or, I'll start developing a project based upon some of the ideas the workshop has stirred up.

If the workshop information is irrelevant, I start creating a graphic novel or writing a short story.  I've actually written a quarter of a novel, Candy Cane Revolution about the danger of power as Santa moves from savior of the elves to ruthless tyrant, throughout the course of boring workshops, professional development sessions and mediocre sermons.   I know it sounds harsh, but I do it to protect myself from some of my darker, more cynical thoughts that creep up when I'm sitting through a boring lecture.

Solution:

What if workshops were just that?  What if people had a chance to work with the information, use it in a meaningful way and then leave with something tangible?  What if they could tap into the creative impulse not as an afterward application, but in the midst of the process?

A few years back, I had a chance to teach a six-week professional development called Project Social Voice.  According to my objectives, I needed to help teachers learn various web 2.0 tools in a meaningful way.  Instead of giving mini-lessons on each tool, I had teachers develop tech-integrated curriculum and eventually put it all together into a portfolio.  We practiced digital story-telling, recorded podcasts and engaged in debate about each medium through the use of our blogs.

The result?  Each teacher learned how to use the medium, but also increased in motivation and self-efficacy (based upon the surveys taken before and after).  Beyond that, though, we had something tangible for our classrooms.  We shared a common curriculum we had developed, but we had the freedom to customize it however we wanted.

Something unexpected happened in the process.  We grew closer.  Somehow, the very personal act of creating something forced us to be more intimate and honest with one another.  We weren't simply a group of people listening to a common speaker.  We had become a guild, working on a common craft, asking hard questions and sharing our expertise.

Reason #3: Why PowerPoint Lost Its Power

It's a lazy late May and the curriculum specialist does her damnedest to cajole us into caring about the presentation.  However, I find myself dozing off after a few minutes.  I have three options for paying attention to the information: I can listen to the speaker read each slide verbatim, I can read each slide from across the room or I can read the thumbnail-sized slides and take notes on the three lines to the right of the slides.

I'm not entirely against a well-constructed slideshow presentation.  I can see value in adding visuals, emphasizing a few key points and presenting information in an image-bound medium.   I am, however, against the trifecta of PowerPoint flaws.  These include comic sans font, the incessant use of clip art and the inclusion of entire paragraphs on one slide.

Solutions

• If presenters want to go text-based, why not choose a better format like a blog post?  This would allow people to leave comments and ask questions.
• If teachers need to read a presentation, a better solution might be to read it at their own pace, at a closer distance. So, e-mail it or publish it as a Google Document.
• If we're going to integrate technology, we need to consider allowing teachers to use the technology for their own learning.  Whether it's a video, podcast, concept map or blog, it seems more powerful to have teachers use these tools for their own learning than to experience them passively.
• Before thinking of PowerPoint, ask whether or not it's really the best medium for the message. Do these concepts need additional visuals? Does the professional development need to be presenter-directed?  The medium itself seems to push people toward an entertainment mindset and a lecture format.   

Reason #2: The Five Failing Formats of Professional Development

Repeat the mantra: This is not a training and I am not a trained monkey.

The following is a list of five failing formats that I've seen in professional development.  This is not meant as a personal attack on a district or an individual, but rather an examination of what's wrong with these formats and how districts can reform these practices.

#1 - Shame On You
Don't buy into the label of "collective inquiry."  This type of professional development does not begin with the teacher's passions, interests or questions.  Instead, it's a collective guilt session presented through bar graphs and pie graphs explaining just how much a school's test scores suck.  Occasionally this will devolve into a blaming game.  (Can you tell me just how much your students bombed?) Other times, it leads to some very superficial solutions.  (What we need are more plans, a Blackboard Configuration, some test prep and maybe a taser to shock students who get the wrong answers) One year, I counted fourteen "professional development" meetings that fit this criteria.  Thankfully, I am now at a school where the PD is much more productive and much less shame-based.

The end result?  Horrible staff morale and bitter in-fighting.  If I wanted a heavy dose of guilt, I'd watch Oprah.  I don't need it in cute graphs, decades-old clip art and comic sans font.

Solution:  Sharing data has its place, but it's most valuable presented as a small group or among the students.  If we want collective inquiry, the best place to start would be structured action research projects.  Why not observe one another's classrooms instead of reading more pie graphs telling you that your school sucks?  Why not structure time for teachers who are excelling in one standard to teach a professional development to one's peers?

#2 - One Massive E-mail
This is the type of professional development that really could be presented in the form of an e-mail.  It's full of oh-by-the-way's and make-sure-you's.  This type of meeting can turn really ugly when an administrator asks if anyone has any questions or comments.  All of a sudden, it becomes a debate about whether skinny jeans count on Blue Jean Friday and whether we should consider Crocs as slippers or bona fide shoes.  If it weren't for time limits, the conversation would devolve into "someone stole my Diet Coke right out of the fridge" or "I don't know who peed on the toilet seat, but it was just plain gross."

Solution: Scrap this type of meeting altogether and send out a bulleted-point e-mail.  Then, when people air their asinine grievances, it's all part of a public record stored on District Office hard drives.

#3 - The Slick Sales Pitch
There's nothing wrong with a well-polished presentation.  There is, however, something wrong with a "trainer" (can we get past that term?  I'm pretty sure we're not wild animals.) who feels the need to share his secret recipes and magical formulas while knowing nothing of the neighborhood context, the school culture or the collective knowledge of the staff.  We don't need an educational version of Shamwow.  What we want are practical solutions, authentic dialogue and perhaps even a dose of humility.  Share your story.  Share some of your failures.  Give us student examples that include some mistakes.  Otherwise, it's all snake oil and Shamwow.

Solution:  There's a right time for expert consultants.  However, the criteria should go beyond simply "What does this person know?" If we need a dose of pure knowledge, we'll use Google.  Instead, we need to move into "Is this person relevant?  Can this person be open to conversation?  Does this consultant admit to mistakes?"

#4 - The Next Big Thing
Last week it was student discourse.  The week before, it was reading across the curriculum.  Before that, it was the explicit teaching of grammar. Now, it's Balanced Reading.  When professional development planners drop the Next Big Thing on teachers at random, through the use of paragraph-long Power Point slides, teachers internalize the idea that innovation is simply a fad and that there is no sense of continuity to the notion of best practices.

Solution:  Move past the PowerPoint slides and think through the critical issues that really matter.  Then create a system of differentiated professional development that allow teachers to go in-depth, think critically and find genuine solutions to meet their individual needs.  One teacher might need help in classroom leadership while another might need some advice on differentiated instruction.  Either way, schools would do well to consider giving teachers more time to go in-depth.

#5 - The Urgent Message
Schools often use up professional development time with instructions on fire drills, blood borne pathogens and a four-hour course on how to proctor the standardized test.  While this type of professional development might be important, it is not truly professional development, because it ultimately does not impact student learning.

Solution:  Set aside a small amount of time for those types of meetings or better yet, outsource them to the e-mail.  I realize that this sounds simplistic and perhaps it is.  However, the excuse that we need to hold teachers accountable for paying attention doesn't make much sense.  It's just as easy to daydream during the lecture on proctoring the AIMS test as it is to delete an e-mail.

Reason #1: You're Not Listening to Me

A sample of how I spend my PD time

We each fill out our Buzzword Bingo cards with a strong sense of the educational jargon the speaker will use.  The rules are simple: a teacher must have five in a row and four corners BINGO doesn't count.  It's difficult to find words that others won't use.  We all go for "expectations," "accountability" and "data."  However, I'm thinking the corporate words of "mission," "vision," and "transparency," might earn me a quick win.

When I grow tired of Buzzword Bingo, I begin drawing cartoons.  The first is an edgy political rant, comparing the War on Poverty of the Sixties to the War on Drugs in the Eighties and the War on Public Education from today.

I glance around the room.  Seven teachers are grading papers (cursed paperless classroom!).  Two teachers are reading novels.  Five teachers are passing notes.  Yet, most of the staff is playing the bobble head game. Nod your head and smile for a bit and eventually the speaker assumes you are listening.

At first glance, it seems that teachers don't care.  Yet, that's not the case.  They care deeply about student learning and about their own professional development.  However, on this late September afternoon, the teachers feel beat down by the barrage of graphs explaining why collectively they suck.

"This is really unprofessional," a teacher comments.

"I know.  Lecturing us with graphs on how crappy our test scores are," I answer.

"I meant the teachers," she responds.

"Oh, yeah.  I guess so."

The speaker walks by during a brief cooperative learning activity and checks out my BINGO card.  "What is this?" she asks.

Busted.

"I am making a list of educational jargon.  As I hear it, I check it off.  I'm putting together a master list of the phrases we use without defining the vocabulary.  One of the areas that really piques my interest is the concept of a semantic environment.  How often does a speaker use corporate language, industrial language or organic language?   It becomes the unspoken metaphor."

"Very interesting," she says.

"Thanks."

"Mind if I take the words and make a glossary on the chart paper?"

"Fine by me," I tell her.

So, she writes out the vocabulary and I feel guilty about the Buzzword BINGO cards.  Yes, I lied to her.  At the time, I told myself it was to avoid hurting her feelings.  Looking back, I did it to save face.

When the session ends, the speaker passes out yellow feedback forms.  Everybody plays nice and gives her decent scores on everything that she's assessing.  It's not that they're lying.  It's that the form doesn't measure what counts:

• Is this relevant? 
• Was this worth my time? 
• How will this change the way I teach? 
• What are the practical implications of what I learned? 
• How did this tap into my expertise, my passion or my personal story? 

Take a sample of staff meetings, workshops and professional development sessions throughout most districts.  The teachers don't care. They'd rather grade papers, play games, pass notes or draw pictures than listen to a speaker explain the rules of grammar.

"Teachers are the worst students," I've heard people claim. 

Not true.  

Visit a classroom at the end of a day and listen to teachers talk about lessons.  They share ideas.  They offer advice.  They tell stories about their classroom experience.  It's meaningful.  It's organic.  There's one hundred percent engagement that leads to deeper learning.  Teachers are capable of being great students.  What they lack is patience for bad teaching.  

The social contract between trainer and trainee has been broken and the culprits are shame and irrelevance.  Teachers want to learn.  What they don't want is to sit through a long meandering lectures imploring them to fix the broken system.

Solutions:

1. Take a staff survey of PD and keep it truly anonymous.  Then take the results and find the overall trends.  Is it the presentation style?  Does it have to do with the irrelevance of topics?  
2. Scrap the current PD models and find a more organic, relational and research-based solution.  Tap into the expertise of the staff.  Again, this requires listening to teachers and occasionally abandoning the original agenda.