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Effective PD Within the School Day. Giving Truly Useful PD Within the School Day 1.

Effective PD Within the School Day

Keep it simple: Stick to a specific topic. As an example, if you are expected to review standards-based teaching/learning methods and to share best practices with newly hired educators, make a decision to instead introduce just one of those topics. When teachers are given the opportunity to digest one sound technique at a time and implement it, it will stick. Too many ideas become noise. 5 Ideas for Improving Professional Learning Experiences. Wanted: Professional Learners. 5 Tips for Making the Most of Conferences. By GEI Editorial Team As parents and teachers, we have a common link that binds us, our kids.

5 Tips for Making the Most of Conferences

Whether you’re the parent or the teacher in this scenario, supporting the educational success of the child is the number one goal. The Problem(s) With (most) Professional Learning. A while back I gained accreditation from NSW BOSTES to deliver workshops for which teachers who attended could claim hours against the teaching standards.

The Problem(s) With (most) Professional Learning

When I mentioned this to my old man in the UK he said, “Oh no! You’re not one them tossers now are you?” He’s been an accountant for his entire working life building up – from scratch – a successful company just south of Manchester. He likens attending accredited professional learning in his industry to experiencing a slow and painful death. 5 Reasons Why Teachers Learn Best From Other Teachers. Ahh, in service.

5 Reasons Why Teachers Learn Best From Other Teachers

Whether it is at the beginning of the school year, end of the school year, or smack dab in the middle of the school year…it seems like there is never a good time for school-wide in service. Part of the problem I had with in service as a teacher is that it never seemed “worth my time” to sit and listen to someone from district administration talk, go through powerpoint slides, and share out the new initiative our state was planning on doing to ramp up student achievement.

On the flip side, my cynicism usually melted away (almost immediately) when another teacher was presenting, sharing, or leading us during an in service time. In fact, when I look back at my most valuable learning experiences as a teacher, they are almost always with colleagues and other teachers, instead of with an administrator or consultant or presenter. Teachers learn best from other teachers. That’s one of the reasons we are running the Teachers Leading Teachers Conference. 1. Creating What We Experience – George Couros. Sitting in on a presentation recently, the presenters shared the importance of reflection in practice, and how it is crucial to moving forward.

Creating What We Experience – George Couros

I agreed 100% with this notion and had talked about the importance of reflection often in this space (my blog/portfolio). Having the opportunity to ask questions to the group, I asked them if they create time for the educators they serve to have time for reflection within their school day. They told me a few ways they were doing this, and I appreciated that not only said it was important, but they created time for it.

Here is the deal….If you really think something is important, you will make time for it. As an administrator, if you think something is important for the educators you serve, you will create time for it to happen. Are you diffusing Professional Learning? You should be. – Medium. For a while now I have been a devotee to the Diffusion of Innovations Theory of Everett Rodgers.

Are you diffusing Professional Learning? You should be. – Medium

A robust theory first shared in the 1960s. Way back before the air plane sized IBM’s rolled onto our shores. This theory talks about the different styles of change adopters, and the importance of the Late Majority in ensuring a change sticks. If you look at the graph above, you can see that without a change moving through the Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority and into the Late Majority, it will never stick. Learning to love teach meets. There is a growing momentum in education driven by a desire to share our practice and learn from our colleagues.

Learning to love teach meets

Increasingly teachers are finding ways to break free of their classrooms and share their ideas. Collaborations in the interests of unlocking the collective potential of the profession are spreading within and importantly between schools. Cultures of Perpetual Learning – Modern Learning – Medium. The best professional development for teachers. It’s always good practice to offer professional development for K-12 teachers as part of any new program or initiative.

The best professional development for teachers

“Making” in the classroom is no different. Hundreds of research studies offer guidelines and tips, yet it seems that many programs, even if they follow guidelines, do not adequately prepare teachers to change their actual practice in the classroom. Teacher professional learning pedagogy needs to change too. Teacher professional learning pedagogy needs to change too For too long now education conferences and professional learning events have prolonged a traditional “sage on the stage” approach.

Teacher professional learning pedagogy needs to change too

It’s not them, it’s me. – Why I can’t do big conferences anymore. It’s not them, it’s me. – Why I can’t do big conferences anymore.

It’s not them, it’s me. – Why I can’t do big conferences anymore.

Tonight my Twitter and Facebook feeds are reminding me that this week signals the biggest education conference in Australia. I won’t be there. I’m giving my seat to someone who will enjoy it and respect the opportunities it gives them. For a little while now I’ve had a love-hate relationship with these huge affairs. These evangelistic affairs that bring educators from all corners of our country, or city in which they are held. And then it ends… I take my seat to listen to the keynotes, pull out my Twitter and search for a hashtag, and wait… and watch… and sit silently… and then it all falls apart.

Teacher Faculty Meeting Bingo - Simplek12. Why Professional Development Should Be More Like 'MasterChef' 7 Characteristics of Great Professional Development - 7 Characteristics of Great Professional Development by Drew Perkins, Director of TeachThought Professional Development As the end of the school year draws to a close, administrators start pulling together their PD plans for the summer in preparation for the next year. Meanwhile, teachers sit anxiously by with the dread that can only come with the anticipation of the dreaded PD days that their contract says they must attend. It’s not that teachers don’t want to grow and improve their craft.

They do, and they find it refreshingly professionalizing when they get to. 1.