Teaching the Teachers: At a Glance by Allison Gulamhussein

http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers

After our conversation about professional development last week, I feel like we are right on with our thoughts on what works and what doesn't work.  The article starts off talking about the fact that Common Core is one of the largest educational reforms ever, and how these new standards foster more critical thinking than in the past.  The problem is that this critical thinking is not happening in most classrooms because it requires a new approach to teaching...which the teachers have not learned or have not been taught.

They say that effective professional is key and a one-time workshop (which is the most traditional type of PD) is not effective.  Teachers are able to learn new approaches very easily but implementing them is the hardest part.  If the implementation phase is to be effective, there has to be continuous practice and SUPPORT.  Coaches or mentors are key to getting teachers to be highly effective in a skill.  No different that how we are supposed to be teaching children. They also say that PD is best delivered in the context of the teacher's subject area instead of as a whole group "figure it out for yourselves" mentality.

There is no doubt that administration knows the importance of PD, but funding seems to be what gets in the way.  The article states that funding can be an issue but it doesn't have to cost more, possibly just restructure the current spending to allow for this.  In the past, research showed that most schools spent between 2 to 5 percent of their budget on PD.  With the recent economic challenges, it is projected to be much lower than that.  The largest cost of PD is really just teacher's time.  In order for PD to be effective, they say that teachers should be allowed 3 to 4 hours per week for collaboration or coaching.  Since contracts prohibit too much more time be added to teacher's work load, this requires stipends or paying substitutes which require more money.

Professional development is important because of the transition to this new "critical thinking" type of teaching.  Before we can teach critical thinking, we need to understand how to critically think ourselves.  If we are going to continually have higher expectations for our students, we need to get teachers the support they need to be able to get them to these high goals.

I agree with most of their takes on professional development, especially on the ways to provide effective PD.  I don't know that I can agree with idea that they think it doesn't have to cost districts more money in order to do that.  Most teachers that I know already put in many more hours at school than contracted, so how can you get this accomplished without paying teachers for more of their time?

I would love to see a restructuring of how we do PD in District 140.  I feel that there is often too much time spent on the assessment end of things instead of the teaching end.  And if we don't change our thinking with this, I don't think we will see much change in these assessments.