Professional Time Wasters?

Ok, so I’m surprised. The complaint du jour this morning in the coffee room was the professional development/workshop push in my school this year. The take was that the new administration values professional development or attendance at workshops above classroom teaching. Since most of those expressing this viewpoint are people older than me, who have , mostly, been teaching longer than me (I have 25 years) maybe I’ve not been around long enough to believe that my attendance at a workshop will add nothing to my practice upon my return . Maybe I have yet to be convinced that my presence in the classroom is utterly vital for student learning every day. (Ironically, today, I’m subbing in a foreign language class for a teacher who is away (though not at a workshop), and if the assignment left is any indication, maybe teacher presence IS utterly vital to any learning.)
I know that they will bitch no matter what, and that bitching doesn’t necessarily indicate a deep level of resistance, but what does that complaining really say? It says that
A. their experience of professional development or workshops has been largely negative, and
B. that they see no connection between their learning and their students’ learning, and
C. that all the lip service we pay to “developing lifelong learners” is just that: lip service.
Yes, there’s plenty of worthless professional development out there. Just as there is plenty of worthless classroom practice.
Another thing I find disturbing is found in this remark: “Just tell me where to go and I’ll go there” -- no agency of the learner/teacher in this case at all. There’s no desire to learn being expressed, no excitement about learning, and no effort to seek out opportunities for learning. Wake up, folks. We have no reason to complain about our students’ apathy toward learning if they see it reflected in us every day!
So there are some things to tackle here – both locally and in the big picture.
Issues for us – clarifying the intent of the professional development focus, strengthening the expectation, and finding worthwhile opportunities so change can be modeled.
Issues for education at large: improving the quality of available professional development , creating a school year schedule that doesn’t require robbing classroom time to make room for PD activities.

Describing Elephants

I'm feeling rather like one of the blind men describing the elephant. When I proposed this workshop, I had a vision, probably similar to the visions I've had for the classes I taught back 10 years or more ago when I was in the regular classroom. I know enough to understand I had to expect that that vision would be altered by the reality of the kids in front of me, but wow. This has thrown me far more than I expected.

When I proposed and described the workshop, I envisioned educators who had assigned a research project to their students for several years running deciding that the project needed a facelift, a little extra umph, a little more relevance. I thought I'd get some folks who'd decided that they needed to introduce a little project based learning into their class, so they were thinking of adding a project to their study of.....

In other words, I made the fatal mistake of assuming my class would be coming with all the pre-requisites for learning that tend to make educational experiences worthwhile. But they're like the kids...(see the lightbulb?) So, hmm. I'm glad I asked, but how am I going to fit all this into one day? What are the MOST important things for us to explore? How will I offer something worthwhile to the collaborative team working on strengthening a portfolio research project (whatever that is) and something equally useful to the individual who wants to make a powerpoint about classroom rules? Good reminder for me about the challenges of the classroom.

Musings on Project-Based Learning

As a student, I hated projects. As a teacher, I love them. Why did I hate them? We rarely had time to work on them in class – lots of homework never made me happy. There was too much opportunity to procrastinate, which I did all too often, then ended up miserably trying to cram it all into the last minute. I was not always clearly aware of why the project was assigned, nor of what I was expected to produce. And frequently, the project consisted of collecting things/facts/pictures and presenting them in some “fancy” or “artistic” way. Kids with fewer siblings and more competitive parents always ended up with the beautiful posterboards enhanced with store-bought stickers and letters, while mine always had that “not so skillful DIY” look.

Teachers I know hate assigning projects. They are too frequently disappointed in the outcomes, but for some very basic reasons
1. “Their presentation/speaking skills are awful! I just can’t stand to listen to all this drivel” Well…they need to be taught this as well as the content that they’ll be presenting! A walk-through for a mini-audience, a chance to pre-present before the teacher can do wonders for the final product. This is where schools need to spend some time, in my opinion. From little on, kids need to get up and present and be given age-appropriate, gentle feedback on their effectiveness. Sure, it’s hard. It’s school. It’s supposed to be!
2. “Group work is a nightmare. One kid carries the group and the rest skate and goof off” They need to be taught group skills, too. Don’t come to the library, or give class time for project work, and use that time yourself to grade papers or have an extra cup of coffee in the teachers’ room. Your involved presence alone will do a lot to ensure that they stay on task.
3. “But I do circulate…” And ask task-related questions? Ask each student to log his or her activity during the class period? Give feedback on how they are working, what they’re choosing to focus on? Reserve a few minutes at the end of each period for groups to record their progress and share it with you?
4. “I clearly told them what to do, and they just aren’t living up to my high standards” Is there a prototype? Do they know what a successful project looks like? What about a not-so-successful project? Do they understand what they are supposed to be learning, and why you assigned the project? Did they help to develop the rubric for defining success? Did you help them to employ and work through a research-process model?
5. “I’m embarrassed. They made so many mistakes” Hello? School? This is where you make mistakes, so you can learn. If there are no mistakes made, no learning is taking place. That being said, there needs to be a refining process in place that allows for feedback before the “final product” stage. Substantial feedback, multiple times. There is NO final draft – just the best version so far.


At bottom, there is nothing that can salvage a project with which the assigning teacher is bored. Teacher enthusiasm for the subject matter, and clear, obvious interest in student learning and mastery go very far in ensuring a project’s success with students. If you don’t believe these things are valuable, how on earth do you expect your students to value the experience?