Was your last PD valuable for your staff?

Full transcript below video.

Video Transcript

Hey guys, it’s Chad from teachbetter.com. Today I want to talk about how you can make sure that the PD that’s provided for your staff gets the most value, relevance, and impact for the rest of the year.

The first thing you need to do when thinking about PD is to make sure that the people that need to attend that PD have a high amount of relevance for that PD. Which means, if they’re in the room, it connects to them and their needs as teachers, instructors, or support staff.

The next thing you need to make sure, absolutely, is that it clearly aligns with the vision of the district. Now, the worst thing that can happen, is during the PD, one of your staff members asks, “how does this connect to what we were doing last year, or what we’re going to be doing later this year?”

Make sure that whatever is expected of your staff, make sure that whatever the long term vision is, is clearly articulated to your staff, so that everyone is on the exact same page and they see how that training or work connects directly to the mission and vision of your district.

The other thing I want you to think about is getting teacher feedback. If you’re thinking of bringing work, training, or development for your staff, bring in some of your top teachers or some of your leadership team. Make sure you get some of their insight, their input, on whether they think it’s going to be valuable to their colleagues, and to themselves.

When you’re thinking about the training you’re going to provide your staff, also make sure that they have a ton of work time. The worst thing that can happen at a workshop, training, or development is that teachers sit and get talked to for 3, 5, 6, 8, or 12 hours over two days. Then, they have to go home and spend 24 more hours on work that they could have done during the workshop. Make sure that whatever training is being provided is giving them ample work time to leave with something in their hand that they can implement in their classroom. Not only is this going to be more productive for your staff, but it is going to make the success and implementation of whatever that training was on, much higher.

Now, the last thing I’m going to talk about is probably one of the key factors in the success or failure of most initiatives or training. And that is, make sure whoever’s providing it is going to ensure support and follow-up with your teachers.

Any teacher can sit for 2, 3 hours, or however long the training is, and get information. But when they start to make mistakes, when they stumble, when they fail, those things are going to cause your teachers to revert back to their previous practices. Make sure that whoever you’re working with has a plan, or at least digitally is following up and supporting your staff with what the training was on. This is going to make sure that your teachers are held accountable, that if they have problems, they have someone to reach out to. But most importantly, that they can be successful with whatever that training was on.

Thanks for taking the time to listen. Please follow me on twitter, @chadostrowski, like this video, subscribe to the channel, and share it with your friends. Stay awesome!