Table of Contents
Ever been in a professional development (PD) session and felt completely lost? Years ago when I was an English teacher, my district decided to focus our PD on Kagan strategies. I’m not sure why, but they went completely gung-ho for this approach and bought thousands of dollars of Kagan books and binders.
Back then as an eager first-year teacher, I wondered why we were implementing this strategy. Did someone know Kagan? Was he an alumnus? Was this a government-funded initiative because of Race to the Top? As we dove into the content, I learned the approach could help increase collaboration and engagement within the classroom.
For any effective PD, there needs to be a focus, active learning and participation, coherence, and follow-up (Desimone & Garet, 2015).
Now that I have many more years under my belt, I question whether or not the district should have brought in an outside consultant to teach us ways to reach our kids. I know there was capacity within the building that was untapped. Most importantly, these teachers knew our kids better than any outside consultant.
Since the Kagan exploration, I’ve experienced as a teacher and administrator opportunities for teachers to be the lead learners and experts (as they rightly deserve to be!). In this week’s post, I will review:
What I’ve learned from personal experience about teacher-led PD.
Why teachers should lead PD.
How to implement this approach in your school.
By the end of this post, you should be ready to hit the ground running with teacher-led PD. Hopefully, you’ll avoid some pitfalls that I’ve experienced.
Lessons Learned from Teacher-led Professional Development
One of the first PD sessions I helped plan as an administrator focused on integrating technology into the classroom. We asked various teachers if they would like to lead a session and about 8-10 offered to help out. We were pretty pleased with the array of choices for teachers.
I attended a Padlet session. The teacher facilitator created a thoughtful presentation that reviewed what Padlet is, why teachers should use it, and how it can help students learn. Her session was engaging with opportunities for us to even practice the tool (a must in any PD). However, now that I look back, I don't think the administrative team and I did a good enough job laying the groundwork and follow-up of the PD day.
There was no common goal, no why, no needs assessment, and no follow-up.
For any effective PD, there needs to be a focus, active learning and participation, coherence, and follow-up (Desimone & Garet, 2015). We were lacking in some of these areas. Don’t get me wrong - it was great we were having teachers lead the PD. We just weren’t setting everyone up for true success. Despite our failures, the teachers did produce engaging sessions (which proves that teachers are exceptional human beings and extremely resourceful!).
When you decide to empower teachers, do it because you truly care about them and their well-being. Be authentic. Anyone can spot a phony to quote my favorite candid teen, Holden Caulfield.
We continued to have our teachers lead PD but still lacked some of the best practices (Desimone & Garet, 2015). The last time we had a teacher-led PD opportunity, I worked with a team, a think tank of all-star teachers who disseminated innovative teaching strategies. The teachers created various sessions around topics we discussed in our monthly meetings. This PD day was their opportunity to shine and contribute to the community.
After the planning and preparation of the sessions, it was decided to make attending these sessions optional.
Now, I know we all love learning, but if you give people an opportunity to either attend a PD session or do their own thing like grading or planning, there is a good chance you are going to lose a chunk of people. And lose them we did. One session I went into only had me and a district supervisor who was popping over because she heard of the sessions. I was crushed for the teacher.
When we go down the road of having our people lead PD, we need to make sure they are fully supported.
The Benefits of Teacher-led Professional Development
I must admit if I could sit and create PD all day long, I would. I love everything about it. In all honesty, I don’t know why anyone would go to outside consultants like the Kagan crew and not tap into the teachers within their building. Teachers are just waiting to share their knowledge and expertise. Before reviewing how you can get teacher-led PD started, I want to highlight two major benefits:
1. Teacher Empowerment
To quote, Snap….. “I’ve got the power!” This 80’s dance party classic has got a lot of wisdom to it. Teachers do so much for our students and deserve to be empowered. To feel empowered, teachers need three things:
To be treated as professionals.
To have the tools to succeed.
To be given opportunities to grow as leaders. (Zemelman & Ross, 2009)
Administrators can create structures so that teachers have the chance to be lead learners and share their knowledge. Teachers have to feel like they have some say in their learning (Cook, 1981). What better way to own learning than to have teachers be the designers and facilitators of that learning?
There are even psychological benefits to teacher empowerment as teachers who feel empowered can be more intrinsically motivated and committed (Sagnak, 2012). When you decide to empower teachers, do it because you truly care about them and their well-being. Be authentic. Anyone can spot a phony to quote my favorite candid teen, Holden Caulfield.
2. Responsive to Teacher & Student Needs
Remember one of the major qualms about the Kagan PD? The consultants didn’t know our students. If teachers have the chance to lead PD, then they can develop learning that is responsive to the needs of your community. Teachers know what not only their students need, but also their peers.
When PD is organic (shout out to Whole Foods), teachers may be more receptive to learning (Dail et al., 2018). If teachers have the opportunity to grow their capacity and thoughtfully plan sessions that cater to the needs of their learning community, everyone wins all around. Home-grown is best.
How to Get Started
Just like anything - you have to follow and trust the process. If you are ready to rock n roll and get the party started with your teachers leading PD, then I recommend you follow these nine steps.
1. Develop a Team
The saying that teamwork makes the dream work does have validity to it. Every successful PD I have been a part of has involved a team of educators working together toward a common goal (I’ll get to the goal part in a second). First, the team - your team should consist of a diverse group of innovative, collaborative individuals who know their stuff and are willing to teach others. Developing teacher teams can help your school in other ways which I addressed in a previous post, but for now, we are focused on the team’s ability to move the staff forward professionally.
2. Determine your Why
Simon Sinek says to, “Start with why,” and he isn’t the guru of all things leadership for nothing. When you get any group of educators together, you must establish your why. You need a rudder for your sailboat. You can’t aimlessly go into the abyss. What is/are the vision, mission, and/or goals that drive your teacher team who is designing professional learning? When you have this, determining the rest should be much easier.
3. Create Norms
Even though I’m sure your team will function brilliantly, we always want to be ready for any storms on the horizon. Creating norms can prevent a titanic-like event from happening. When we encounter an iceberg, we merely steer the ship around, using our norms as a guide. You can find sample norms all over the web, but the best norms are (yet again) organic.
One activity that I’ve used to develop norms is to first have everyone jot down what they need to work in a high-functioning group. Once they do that, they share with a partner or two and narrow down their norms. Then, the groups share with the entire team and we group our norms based on common themes, and…… voila! You've got organic norms!
4. Do a Needs Assessment
Once you have your why and your norms, then you need to figure out what to do for your sessions. You can do a needs assessment based on observations, various forms of hard data, and/or teacher feedback. You then take all that data and begin the creation process, ensuring what you develop addresses the data and aligns with your why.
5. Plan the sessions
Just like the classroom, sessions need to engage participants through active learning strategies and relevance. But one of the secret ingredients to planning exceptional PD is... job-embedded PD! BAM! (Thank you Emeril!)
Teachers are already over-stressed and overworked, so if we can create opportunities to
embed PD into the workday, even better. You of course can have the PD fall on a district in-service day, but I find that sometimes these days are fought over like my kids fight over who gets the last cookie.
If it is not possible to have PD during an in-service, then faculty meetings are the next best option. In all honesty, faculty meetings should be used for professional growth and not dissemination of information that could be in an email.
Another incredible opportunity for job-embedded PD is having teachers engage in learning labs. The basic learning lab structure is:
1. Teachers learn a common strategy or pedagogical approach.
2. Working with a team of 3-5, the teachers co-plan a lesson together.
3. One of these teachers offers their classroom to try out the lesson. Someone
within the group teaches the lesson to the class.
4. Teachers observe the lesson with a common focus determined by the team.
5. The team then debriefs after that observation to share what they saw.
6. The team continues to incorporate their learning into their lessons.
Learning labs can have multiple iterations. But the best part is that this is another organic approach to learning!
Take a collaborative approach when planning PD and tap into the knowledge within your building.
6. Show Me the Money (and Time)!
If we want to fully invest in our teachers’ professional growth, then it is going to take time and money. Whether it is comp time, flex time, or planning time and coverage, if we want quality PD, it’ll take some resources. The last thing we want is for teachers to feel overwhelmed by having to do one more thing (Dail et al., 2018), and getting compensated can help alleviate this feeling. So buck up and give them the time and/or money to plan their PD.
7. Implement
Once your team has planned and developed their sessions, then it’s time to implement! As an administrator, you should learn with the teachers and be present during the sessions. I have worked with various administrators who don’t want to “bother” teachers and to let them “be” in their professional learning. But, if we are asking our teachers to challenge themselves with new learning, administrators should be doing the same alongside teachers.
Another component of implementation is ensuring that materials are collected and housed somewhere electronically so everyone has access. This is particularly important if you are having a menu of options. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with educators who were upset because they only could attend one or two sessions rather than all of them.
More evidence as to how AMAZING teachers are. 🙂 ❤️
8. Avoid the dip!
No, I’m not talking about the dip and chips you’d see at a Super Bowl party (oh my poor Eagles!)… I’m talking about one of the major problems of PD - the implementation dip. You learn, but then nothing happens! The learning lab structure can counteract this as participants actively engage with the learned content by developing lessons and having peer observations. If what the teachers learned is truly important, then the administration and PD team should ensure that there is some follow-up and support. Don’t leave the teachers hanging going, “What’s next?”
9. Feedback for growth
If we want to grow, we need to get feedback. Whether it is an exit ticket or a survey for teachers to complete, we must learn what went well, what could change, and how teachers plan to apply what they learned to their classrooms. I’m not looking for a dissertation-style survey. 3-5 questions are plenty! If they are Likert-scale, even better. Get that data so you and your team can begin planning the next PD!
One Last Thought
When school went virtual because of the pandemic, I can’t tell you how many teachers rose to the occasion and designed PD on various tools like FlipGrid, Padlet, escape rooms, Seesaw, and so much more. We rallied together as a community to get our students and each other through one of the darkest and most trying times in education. Despite the struggles, our teachers were ready and willing to share their learning and expertise with their peers so that our kids could learn.
While consultants can assist with some district initiatives by offering a professional, outside perspective, they should not exclusively be used for PD when there is teacher capacity within your building. Administrators should take a collaborative approach when planning PD and tap into the knowledge and skills of their teachers. The impact of doing so will ripple throughout the building, empowering teachers with voice and agency as they create opportunities catered to the learning needs of the community.
References
Cook, G. E. (1981). Professional development for English educators: A perceptual view of preservice and in-service teacher education." English Education, 13(2).
Dail, J. S., Goodsite, M., & Sanders, S. (2018). Teacher Empowerment through partnerships: A sustaining model of professional development. English Journal, 107(4), 20–25. https://doi.org/10.58680/ej201829559
Desimone, L. M., & Garet, M. S. (2015). Best practices in teacher's professional development in the United States. Psychology, Society, & Education, 7(3), 252-263.
Sagnak, M. (2012). The empowering leadership and teachers’ innovative behavior: The mediating role of innovation climate. African Journal of Business Management, 6(4): 1635–1641.
Zemelman, S. & Harry, R. (2009). Thirteen steps to teacher empowerment: Taking a more active role in your school community. Heinemann.
Comments