NEIT2008-3E

I've posted some research I did on professional development in grad school. - Adam Van Auken

** Summary of Research on Effective Professional Development  ** Here’s what the research has to say on professional development. In a review of studies on educational professional development, Daresh (2001) found that: Andragogy (the art and science of teaching adults) also has some helpful research. Wood and Thompson (1980) found that: ·  Adults will learn when the goals and objectives of a learning activity are considered by the learner to be realistic, related, and important to a specific issue at hand. ·  Adults will learn, retain, and use what they perceive as relevant to their immediate personal and profession needs. ·  Adults need to see the results of their efforts and have frequent and accurate feedback about progress that is being made toward their goals. ·  Adults want to be the origins of their own learning, and they wish to be directly involved in the selection of learning objectives, content, activities, and so forth. ·  Adults will tend to resist and learning experience that they believe is either an open or implied attack on their personal or professional competence. ·  Adults reject prescriptions by others for their own learning. Daresh (2001) suggests: First, the fact that adults want (and learn best from) experiences that address immediate problems suggests that leaders should direct activities toward answering the perennial question, “What should I do on Monday morning?” In addition recognizing that adults have specialized learning needs, Daresh also points out that another “missing ingredient” to professional development programs is accounting for individual differences in adult learners. He points out that: A recurring message from critics of “bad” staff development is that teachers do not like to be treated as if they were a herd of sheep-a sort of amorphic blob known collectively as “the staff.” Supervisors and others who plan development activities often seem to overlook the fact that, within the staff, many different needs, interests, learning styles, and abilities exist. Time and again, teachers report that staff development and inservice sessions are a waste of time because no effort was made to match learning activities with learning needs.
 * Staff development is perceived as more effective when content is based on the self-reported needs of participants
 * Desired staff development content reflects topics of immediate concern to practitioners
 * Teachers and other educators wanted to be involved in planning their own staff development programs and activities
 * Staff development participants want to be involved with planning, implementing, and evaluating their learning experiences. The general finding expressed in many studies was that participants do not wish to have someone “do” staff development “to” them.”
 * Staff development participants prefer learning activities and programs that make them engage in a process. They do not wish to be mere passive observers of presentations by others. In addition, demonstrations were more highly valued than lecture presentations.
 * Staff development is viewed as more effective when it is part of training that continues over an extended period of time. Short-term, one-shot sessions were viewed negatively.
 * Programs that enable participants to share ideas and provide assistance to one another are viewed as successful (You guys included this when you mentioned matching teachers for training!).
 * Rewards and incentives, both intrinsic and extrinsic, are evident to participants in programs that are viewed as successful. Intrinsic rewards are derived by gaining competence (self-esteem) or success (self-actualization). Extrinsic rewards could include certificates, enhanced promotional opportunities, or increments in pay.
 * Effective staff development activities are accompanied by ongoing evaluation.
 * A comprehensive assessment of needs should be undertaken before planning specific programs.
 * Independent study, role-play exercises, or presentations by participants can be used to draw upon participants’ talents and abilities.
 * Case analyses, site visits, or guided group discussions may be employed to achieve synthesis of content and to explore its adaptation to diverse situations.
 * Small group discussions, private counseling, or case studies written and analyzed by participants may be useful
 * Role-playing can be an integral part of professional development programs
 * Time for reading and reflection is essential; programming must provide time for this to occur
 * All presentations and activities should be carefully planned and coordinated to build on previous learning
 * Participants grow through confrontation with challenges; they must have freedom to try, to fail, and to try again without fail
 * The program should be evaluated in terms of its objectives

Dumping a bunch of notes from the meeting. I got most of the names and schools, but please feel free to edit as necessary. - Sean Dagony-Clark, Riverdale Country School


 * Convener: Sam Schalman-Bergen, Horace Mann**

last year's model - weekly training sessions this year - more customized to the teachers

LionTech = Learning Initiative On Technology - set up initiative, not just classes - makes people feel a part of something

Sam has set up links via delicious to resources for curriculum

section on "Did you know that you can..." - gives examples of uses of benefit to curriculum

give free stuff as reward for joining initiative - HM gives gifts for certain number of credits - 3 credits per workshop, 1 credit for a meeting - 10 credits = $25 iTunes cert - 15 credits = iPod shuffle - 25 credits = Flip video plus raffle drawing

3 tech trainers across 4 divisions they try to have each trainer teach same skills in each division teachers request a session, schedule a meeting time - use Google Docs for this mainly one-on-one sessions, but sometimes a whole dept will schedule a meeting - or other people will jump into a scheduled meeting

Horace Mann YouTube channel - tech dept watches content before it's posted - they've disabled ratings & comments - 100 MB limit on file size - bigger than they have available on web host

They use Google Docs to log each training session - People trained, Date, Topics covered, Trainer

John *** at *** school Administration uses logs of tech trainings for faculty reviews - allows for positive conversation about what faculty has accomplished

Lynne Shalman @ Chapin school e.g. SmartBoard workshops - runs same session repeatedly, 6 times a week, "until people are tired of it" - finds this gets better results than running once or twice

Sam Nyers @ Dalton departmental workshops are also good - targeting groups works well

John Hetzler- admin position "we don't pay teachers extra to do their jobs" week of professional development meetings at end of school year got admin permission to take 3-4 people for week of tech training worked very well

Lynne- teachers sign up for a once-a-week meeting for a whole year small sessions tailored to individual curriculum have worked better than larger sessions on more general topics

Sam S-B- buy in from students is key as well students telling teachers they want them to use Moodle

John Hetzler- the point is to use technology to improve pedagogy tells teachers: if you use an extra 5 minutes to prepare the lesson, you'll get time back during the lesson - e.g. writing out sentences in SmartBoard in advance - teaching efficiencies

Lynne- the meetings are more for lesson planning than for teaching technology

Sam S-B- also important: the message the tech dept is sending - using tech as a curriculum-relevant tool is important

Sam Nyers - in January, start planning for summer sessions conversations w/ teachers - what do you want to learn? - what are you passionate about? - what do you find difficult to teach? approx 50 members in summer sessions look for collaboration possibilities b/t teachers in diff divisions plan out week of training sessions in advance compensataion is a laptop every 3 years they can redo prof development to get a new laptop started w/ 8 day session now a one week session, 3 sessions per summer - 2 in June, 1 in August throughout following year, follow up w/ teachers - periodic labs to help them continue to accomplish voluntary, but approx 85% of faculty do it - others: either no desire or turn over roughly same size school, 12 in tech dept - all in dept work on summer sessions they outsource imaging of new equipment Mac only they have teachers share experiences at faculty meetings - better result than having tech dept demonstrate

Lynne- MS head wants her to come to MS meeting for 5 minutes, show something cool had web 2.0 workshop day - very exciting to faculty - online timeline makers, voice thread

Adam van Auken @ Nightingale-Bamford one-on-one, customized training is more effective than group Justine Fellows sends e-mails at beginning of year to teachers: - I see you're free at this time each week, can we set up a weekly meeting to discuss your technology needs and build out your curriculum

consensus seems to be that one-on-one training is most effective

Julia Henderson @ Convent of the Sacred Heart created faculty community to meet twice a month to discuss technology faculty community drives the meeting 2 groups, 10-12 faculty each, LS/MS faculty get to know each other, discuss needs overarching theme this year: Smartboards (not currently a SB school) some teachers who felt more adept (but might not have been) felt put out that some members were less tech savvy - ageism - "I don't want to be teaching someone else, I want to learn" get commitment from group by June, to meet 45 minutes ever 2 weeks - meet after school - sometimes conflicts come up re: scheduling - sends e-mail followup to group -- but could do this in more transparent way via web 2.0, perhaps build into school website

Lynne - What about generating group of teachers and building Julia's idea re: tech community into their schedules? - need headmaster buy-in