What's Wrong With Giving Workshops?

Well, our team doesn't work.  We have a brand new teacher who "knows" everything and when I suggest an idea, she says I am a dictator and demand they teach like me.  I don't.  I have been teaching for 21 years and have been through hundreds of workshops (465 hours at my last certificate renewal) and many changes in the district teaching policy.  I am a firm believer of teams working together to get the best possible strategies going.  But, I am never given time to work with the new teachers inside their classrooms.  All I can do is suggest and let them do their thing.  It doesn't work.

I love going to workshops but once again, do I do all those things when I get to my classroom?  Maybe once.  Then I don't have time anymore because I have to plan and teach to the district map.  I don't mind so much but it sure takes a lot of creativity out of education.  Creative teachers are usually the best teachers.

It's interesting what you mention.  In our case, we are piloting a new professional development program.  It's different in many ways.  First, teachers begin with a Needs Assessment survey.  It's a self-assessment with no strings attached.  Next, those who identified both the strongest desire and strongest need for technology integration were placed into a semester-long class (as a substitute to the typical professional development).  

From there, each teacher creates a class blog or website, a professional portofolio and a technology integration plan.  At the end of each quarter, there is formative feedback and in the end of the year, there is summative feedback, based, not upon what the teachers accomplished, but what students had learned in technology as a result of the teacher's professional development.  

It requires no outside work on the part of the teachers, only extra time on the part of the PD facilitator.  So far, all the feedback I have seen has been really positive.  It's only half-way through the year and more teachers are already asking to participate.  

droberts,

The extra work is on the part of the PD faciliator mostly because it is a pilot program.  Right now, I am facilitating the professional development and I created this system with the eventual goal that the people who are learning the skills now will become the future teachers.  

I love the idea of rotating it.  I've always considered myself fairly democratic, but that suggestion really made me think.  In fact, I might try out a rotating role next semester.  Thanks for the idea.

I am one of the rare teachers who loves to go to workshops and generally finds things to apply immediately into my classroom. But I do understand that is rare.

My school has seen that in general workshops on site and/or off site do not work. So this year they have hired 2 instructional coaches. I am one of the two. Our job description is to provide job embedded frofessional development. perhaps that is one way to go. It seems to be sucessful in many ways so far.

We are in our first year and developing the program as we go. Luckily we have an assistant principal guiding us who is very familiar with coaching so she has been training us.

Our focus is on instructional strategies. We are not content coaches. When I go into a room I assume the content being taught is appropriate and do not coach that.

Typically I go into a teacher's classroom and script, which means I try to write down what the teacher and students say. I write sown how many students respond to the questions the teacher poses as well as how many students seems to be engaged in the activity the teacher has designed for that period.

When I meet with that teacher we go over the script and a lot of times that in and of itself opens the eyes of the teacher. They can't believe it was only 1-2 students who are responding to their questions. So we talk about ways to engage more students in their questioning.

I typically ask how they feel the lesson went and what they would want to change or work on the next time they teach that particular lesson. For my veteran teachers who are reflective about their teaching, I am more of a sounding board for them to air ideas and we talk them through. For my newer teacher or less reflective teachers, I may have to make specific instructional suggestions, such as "have you ever considered doing a think-pair-share during your lecture"... or something like that.

Our main focus has been on student engagement. We collected student engagement data for every teacher on campus (172 teachers) during Sept.-Oct. Now we are working with specific teachers that that data told us need the most help. We will gather student engagement data again at the end of the school year and hopefully we will see growth.

At my last school, the first two years the PD was scattered because everyone was not on board, but this year teachers are buying into the design, because we have set aside professional development days.  These days have changed the participation from 25% to at 90% in attendance.  However, I still don't think that the teachers are taking this new learned knowledge back to the classrooms and integrating it.

In the last year, I have been taking technology workshops, which  immediately plan and implement the new knowledge into my lessons, so that I don't forget it.  

I have found that when teachers initiate their own training events, they are much more responsible about transfering the new knowledge and skills to their students.  If the taining/workshop is the "hit of the month" so to speak, that information may be shared with colleagues upon return to school then put aside until they stumble upon it again.  In this case, there is no true transfer of information to the students.

I think that educating teachers about professional development is the missing link.  Too often, we are required to attend training then implement the skills we learned in our classrooms because it is our professional responsibility to do so.  Some of us do so successfully; yet some of us do not.  I think the reason is that we do not see the total picture.  If we are educated about professional development, then we will be enthusiastic about participating in  designing a school plan and equally enthusiastic about carrying out that plan.

Teachers at our school respond well when a trainer comes into our classes, models strategies, works with students and provides ongoing support to them as needed.  A specific example is the technology training and support we received in the past from Rose Parsons from ETS.

Another strategy that has worked for us is the in-house training provided by our former Reaching Coach, Kay Lang, who modeled reading strategies throughout our content areas.

While these strategies have worked for many of us, there are still some who may indicate that this is not the case for them.  As the person responsible for professional development for the new school year, my goal is to work with HRD to help us create a plan which will offer a variety of strategies to meet the varied learning styles of a diverse faculty.

I agree, totally, with your point that we should seek the expertise that we have on our campus.  Over the years we have done just that.  Many of our PD events have been delivered by our in-house pool of experts, and I can assure you this practice wil continue particularly given your point about cost effectiveness.  Your suggestion to use our resident experts was also discussed this morning at HRD when I met with Anamarie, Kyna, Diana and Bill.  As a result of this meeting, your HRD team will assist my school in developing a PD plan and you can be certain that much of the PD delivery will be done by our Miramar High experts.