Blog
How To: Professional Development for Skeptics
If you’re a classroom teacher, you might not look forward to professional development days– and I can’t blame you. But I can try to convince you that PD can be more than just a necessary fact of life—it can be powerful, effective, and good for you and your students.
It’s Time for a Professional Development Evolution
What makes for a great learning experience? It’s actually simple: When learners apply the knowledge they’ve gained to real-world situations that genuinely matter to them.
That is why teachers should have the opportunity to participate in project-based professional development.
Strengthening Teacher Growth and Development Programs at Fordham Preparatory School
Reading detailed feedback is rewarding, but things get more interesting when we debrief peer visits. Having read all 24 pieces of feedback, the visited teacher leads the debrief, rather than being put under the microscope by their visitors. This allows them to ask clarifying and probing questions aligned with their growth priorities. We visitors act as teammates, helping the visited teacher to level up.
From Zero Sum to Positive Sum
To be clear, shifting from a zero-sum to a positive-sum model of school won’t be easy. As one of my former colleagues likes to say, “Teachers cannot create an experience for students that those teachers themselves have not had.” So if we want to initiate a shift in our schools from a zero-sum to a positive-sum worldview, we should begin by inviting teachers into new professional learning and growth experiences.