Good PD

Source: http://www.wcpss.net/news/2008_aug21_hargens/

PD, professional development, can be both a blessing and a curse. It is often well-intentioned and can be an opportunity for real introspection and growth, but it rarely leads to meaningful change in the classroom. The failure of PD lies with both those who are providing and receiving this costly service. In the first installment of a two-part series, I'd like to look at how we can get more from our professional development dollars by all involved.

The amount of time and money involved is quite staggering. For example, during the 2007-2008 school year, the Philadelphia school district spent nearly $58 million on professional-development (Sawchuk, 2010). That is a large sum of money spent for little return, but what makes the situation even worse is that an additional $41 million was actually spent when the district included the actual salaries paid to teachers during this mandated professional learning time (Sawchuk, 2010). Yikes!

How can we get more bang for our buck? Dede (2004) notes four barriers to PD: psychological, organizational, political and cultural. Psychological denotes the need for motivation or reward for the extra effort the new activity requires for implementation, while organizational refers to the availability for support within the teaching environment. For example, I might want to use a new PowerPoint I just developed in a workshop, but if I do not have a projector and the process of obtaining one is quite difficult, I will be less likely to utilize my project. Political and cultural aspects might reflect the values, norms, and “pecking order” of one’s teaching environment. Maybe I was able to obtain the equipment I needed to make use of this PowerPoint, but received negative comments regarding the activity from colleagues or administrators. If this were the case, I’d be much less inclined to make the extra effort to add this to the curriculum. Both PD planners and participants need to be on the alert for these barriers.

Ideas and opinions on how to cultivate this toolbox are quite varied, but Supovitz and Turner (2000) have compiled a recipe for quality professional development that encompasses most of the major theories:

1. Immerse participants in inquiry

2. Engage participants in concrete tasks based on their own experiences

3. Show participants how to connect their work to specific standards for student performance

4. Focus on subject-matter knowledge and content skills

5. Make the PD experience both intensive and sustained

6. Connect the PD experience to other aspects of school change (p. 965)


In the next entry we'll look at ways to implement these suggestions. Stay tuned!

A New Definition for Book "Nook"

Picture Source: http://petitelefant.com/nook-reader/

A few weeks ago my family gave me a Nook for my birthday. Wow! While I'm still getting used to the Web interface, I'm smitten with the games and the books. Reading on the computer screen has always been "okay", but not my favorite. Still, I'm finding myself coming up with excuses to take time out to curl up with a good book...um...I mean, a good Nook.

Please know that there are other reader brands available, and that I am not plugging Barnes and Noble directly. However, I haven't toted a textbook in quite awhile as ours is available online, but I have to say that I find the e-reader format easier on the eyes than my computer screen and actually look forward to pulling it up on the device. The page "flipping" feels more natural, too. While I'm still learning the ropes, I've also enjoyed reading free magazines like WebMD and Tech and Learning which arrive monthly via email. I download these on my computer as pdfs then upload them to the Nook. The same is true for the five free downloads a month available from Free-eBooks, which I've written about before. If you're looking for even more sources of free reading, another I've stumbled across recently is The K-12 Open Source Classroom. It is a bonanza of links that I am still exploring.

Oneof the best things that has come out of the tablet and e-reader craze is their use as a motivational tool. How cool is it when kids (of all ages) are excited to read?! The Nook Study for Faculty community discussion board is a great place to glean tips and tricks on your new toy and its use in the classroom. A quick Google search also yielded contributions from several schools about the book clubs they are creating. Neat stuff! If you find a particularly good resource, please share it with us.

Happy (e)reading!