effectiveness of PL COLLAPSE
It really blows my mind how ineffective PL STILL is today. With all of the research you would think they would shake things up and keep up with the times. Most PL consists of someone standing up in front of a room or in front of a screen on a computer, reading from a powerpoint or from a handout. There is no real learning. Information is spewed out from the presenter to the learner, but who REALLY learns like that?We don't teach our kids like that, nor do they want us to teach our kids like that.... so, why are they teaching us like that? How COULD the 5 Principles of PL really make a difference? "Principle 1: The duration of professional development must be significant and ongoing to allow time for teachers to learn a new strategy and grapple with the implementation problem" (Sterling, 2018). If this priniple is utilized the right way, PL can be something that would help by giving ongoing support to the teachers. I don;t know how many PLs I have gone to that I have no idea what they were trying to teach me. I walk out or log out thinking and feeling that I had just wasted 4 hours of my time when I culd have read all of the information thrown at me on a website and I would "get it" more because I was initiating my learning. "Principle 2: There must be support for a teacher during the implementation stage that addresses the specific challenges of changing classroom practice" (Sterling, 2018). Far too often, the "experts" give the info and move on. There is no support to help the teachers when they are attempting to implement the things they were just taught. Teachers need continuos support at the beginning of implementing new things. This past year we were given new curriculum with ALL NEW reading resources that we were told we HAD to use. There were 2 trainings offered at the beginning odf the year about the new materials and we were told that more trainings would be offered through the year. We were all so very lost and we did not know how to do anythng. "Principle 3: Teachers’ initial exposure to a concept should not be passive, but rather should engage teachers through varied approaches so they can participate actively in making sense of a new practice" (Sterling, 2018). When the people that are giving PL on new ideas are passive in the way they offere the information, the ideas and the meanings sometimes get lost in translation and presentation. We want to get our students engaged in learning, so why can't we be given that chance? I like to be engaged instead of bored and lost. "Principle 4: Modeling has been found to be highly effective in helping teachers understand a new practice" (Sterling, 2018). Typically, more effective learning is done when the person teaching is modeling lessons and expectations. It can be difficult to comprehend what the presenter is trying to teach if they do not model what they are trying to teach. "Principle 5: The content presented to teachers shouldn’t be generic, but instead specific to the discipline or grade level" (Sterling, 2018). When teachers are grouped together with teachers that teach different grade levels or different content than what they teach, true learning not really happening. I went to a writing workshop training that I was told was for grade 2-4. The first hour of the training was full of content each grade level could use, but then for the remaining 3 hours we heard "but this won't work for 2nd grade" or "2nd grade teachers, yours will look different". It was very frustrating because all of us 2nd grade teachers felt de-valued and that our time was wasted. References Sterling, S. (2018, May 21). 5 Principles of professional development for teachers. Edmentum Blog. Retrieved April 2, 2022, from https://blog.edmentum.com/5-principles-professional-development-teache
Comments