How much impact did your last PD have on your staff?
Regardless of whether it’s the beginning of your school year, the middle of a semester, or your staff is about to leave for the summer, you have probably invested a lot of time and energy into finding, paying for, and providing professional development for teachers in your district, in the hopes of helping them grow as educators. All careers can benefit from the implementation of professional development. Fortunately, this is an area where Upskilled thrives.
When it comes to professional development, your goal should always be to increase every educator’s impact in the classroom, but how do we know if it worked? There are three simple questions you can ask yourself to find out if your last PD event was worth it.
1. Was it relevant?
I have been a participant in, and have witnessed many professional development sessions, or teacher trainings, that not only wasted teachers’ time, but leave little to no impact once they are finished. In order to work, professional development for teachers must be relevant, it must be applicable, and it must be useful to those receiving it. If your staff can’t apply what they are learning within at least a few weeks, then chances are they are NOT going to apply it at all. Make sure that the professional development you are providing your staff is worthwhile.
READ: HOW TO MAKE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS WORTHWHILE
2. Did it work?
After you’ve shelled out your limited resources on a new program or professional development offering, take a look around, walk into a few classrooms, and really ask yourself, “what was the impact?” If you can’t see the impact or notice any change in the instruction taking place, then chances are (and I’m terribly sorry) that you wasted your resources and even worse, your staff’s precious time.
3. Was there any follow up?
As a provider of professional development and teacher workshops, I can tell you the things that have the most impact on teachers implementing changes to their instruction are accountability, support, and follow up.
Far too often, after a session or workshop, the trainer will simply leave and you are responsible for monitoring the progress and implementation of everything that was just covered. If your PD provider does not have a support or follow up plan, make sure you ask them how they will ensure successful implementation. Or you can request they provide you with resources to support the process yourself.
In some ways, teachers are not too different from students. If you only show them something once, you can’t expect them to “buy in” and change their instruction, simply because they had a great 4 hour PD session. When someone provides professional development for teachers in your school, they should always follow up with teachers and/or your administration to offer support, guidance, or at least to check in and make sure things are going well.
When teachers know they are supported, they are more willing to take risks and try new things. I get emails every day (and texts, tweets, Facebook messages, etc) from educators who have attended our workshops and are either sharing their success or asking for support. This communication that follows a professional development session is one of the most important pieces to successful implementation.
Because they know I am more than willing to provide that support, teachers tend to feel more confident and comfortable trying and implementing the systems I’ve shown them. I also ensure that all stakeholders have access to things like online courses, templates, and resources so when I leave…they aren’t left alone.