Professional Learning: From Good to Great

Whether you’re a national corporation or a small private school, you’re faced with the question: What makes for valuable Professional Development?

In our work, we frequently collaborate with organizations to discuss what PD can and should look like. There is a plethora of research on best practices and models for professional learning experiences for educators. But how do we make these experiences rich, sustainable, and personal?

Whether face-to-face or virtual, here are our best practices when we create and design learning experiences.

Professional Learning…

…Is Content-Specific
Professional learning must be content focused. It is important to give learners not just what they need, but also what they want. Taking into account their passion to learn makes the learning experience much more meaningful and helps to ensure that they will take and use what they learn and explore during a session. Content focused professional learning experiences have specific learning goals and are grounded in things like solid instructional practice and seamlessly embedded technology use. These learning experiences must also be structured so that learners can see curriculum and pedagogical connections. People should be able to visualize and then actualize how what they’re learning will intentionally affect students. Helping learners understand impact will create more investment and curiosity.

…Provides Hands-On Time
All professional learning experiences should give learners a chance to actively learn and use content. Educators need time to not only explore resources, information, and tools, but also the time to put these things into practice. Sometimes this is through facilitator led activities and sometimes this is self-paced exploration, modeling learner agency, that results in some type of product that they can immediately use with students. By creating environments where learners are given the chance to actively engage, we are making it safe to take risks, fail forward, and test and iterate ideas.

…Models and Acknowledges Instructional Practice
In planning and facilitating professional learning experiences, we have to model solid pedagogical practice for learners. Modeling these practices allows the learner to see it in action, helping them visualize how to bring the experience to their classroom for their students. We should also include intentionally embedded technology use, time for reflection, and opportunities for both giving and receiving feedback. During a learning experience, be intentional and talk about how the session was designed and the intentions behind its creation, activities, and methods. Decomposing professional learning in this way, in real time, helps people better understand the pedagogical choices behind building the experience. As we create professional learning experiences that model good instructional practice, it is also important to promote learner agency. Learners should have choice and be given opportunities to drive their own learning.

…Promote Collaboration
Professional learning experiences should have time built in where participants can learn from each other. This might be guided or scaffolded learning activities where learners use each others’ expertise and skills to solve problems or design and create new products or understandings, or it may be team challenges that they complete using each other for support. Regardless of how, learners need time to practice collaborating in a safe space. And this doesn’t just apply to face to face learning experiences. When professional learning is provided in a virtual environment, consider how to include synchronous components that allow “all the brains in the room” to be together and connect. This might include webinars, Twitter chats, or live discussions; and regardless of the method, learners can engage and learn so much more through talking to each other and ultimately, building relationships.

…Builds in Time for Feedback and Reflection
During any learning experience, people must have time for both low stakes feedback and to reflect on not only what they’re learning, but how this learning makes them feel, what they will take from it, and how the learning could have been more effective. It can also be helpful to institute a feedback loop to help people monitor implementation of the things they learned. Feedback is also important for the facilitator. Garnering feedback from participants helps to inform the design of professional learning experiences moving forward, and can help us see professional learning as an experience that evolves over time with peoples’ needs and wants.

…Offers Sustained Support and Accountability
Planning and preparing for sustainability can be hard, but is so necessary for any kind of professional learning. When the work is done and the professional learning experience is over, it’s important to leave people with momentum, capacity, and expertise to continue on. In order to create sustainability, professional learning must include coaching and expert support. These should be available throughout the learning process, as well as in the interim between sessions. It is also important to provide follow up to help people implement what they’re learning. Follow up happens throughout the process, but there should be scaffolds in place for this to continue once the learning experience is over. One such scaffold is accountability — which is an important ingredient for growth. Who will help participants stay accountable for their growth and using what they are learning to inform their own practice? Accountability partners can be a wonderful way to institute this type of support, as well as help build collegial relationships and encourage discourse around professional practice and student learning.

…Flexes through Agile Facilitation
It’s essential to remember that while facilitators may determine learning goals for the experience, we must acknowledge that our own intentions being realized isn’t the point — the focus should be on the impact that happens during and after the experience itself. Letting go of our own intentions allows us, as facilitators, to see opportunities to pivot and take advantage of teachable moments. If people have the opportunity to pursue their own learning goals, we have to establish a culture where inquiry is encouraged and practiced.

Of course, the thing that can establish a truly impactful learning experience—and the one most difficult to measure— is the learners’ actual experience of it. How and what does the experience leave learners feeling? When learners leave a PD experience, are they hopeful about the work they will design? Are they optimistic about impacting their students immediately? And perhaps most importantly: do the learners feel that the facilitators believe in them and their future success? Even if they only grasp and carry with them one piece of the whole experience, learners will remember how you made them feel.

I appreciate my PLN, colleagues, and friends for helping me build on my own understanding and beliefs around professional learning experiences. Specifically, I would like to thank Ben Kort, Sean Russell, Laura Cahill, Bev Satterwhite, Brittany Miller, Mark Samberg, Greg Garner, and Kailey Rhodes for their insights.

An alternate version of this post appears on the Clarity Innovations Inc. blog.

Transitions

By definition transitions are not easy. When we transition we change from one state or condition to another. Even when we move from a negative space to a more positive one, change is never really simple.

As educators, we are used to transition—our lives revolve around it, with daily changes, pivots, and modifications to our work and professional lives. Many of us thrive on this transition, enjoying the progressions that the profession offers. Growth gives us opportunities for transition, sometimes leading us from the classroom to serve in various other educational roles within schools, districts, and state level agencies. And then some of these opportunities lead us elsewhere, sometimes outside of public education and into the private sector. 

This particular transition—from public to private sector work—often brings with it the idea of sacrifice. To leave the service of children means sacrificing some of what made us want to become educators in the first place. But I think that it doesn’t have to read this way. Having made this transition, recently, from public education to educational services within the private sector, I suggest that we change the narrative. Instead of viewing leaving the classroom, district, or a state entity as a sacrifice, why not view this as a way to affect different (and just as important) change in the educational world. Everyone working in education, whether within the private or public sectors, has a hand in shaping and creating impact on children. 

I adored teaching high school English, being a school librarian, and serving as a digital learning coach. After fifteen and a half years of serving children and other educators, I never thought I’d leave public service. And then an opportunity appeared. In transitioning from public service to working at a private, educational firm, I have reflected a great deal on what service can look like. My transition happened quickly, but brought with it much thoughtful consideration. I was not going to leave public education without making sure that the company I was joining had a mission and vision that aligns to mine. Giving myself space to consider this transition and what it would mean for my career moving forward gave me the confidence to leave public education knowing that I was still going to be able to create change and impact students and educators. 

A few of the things I considered before making my transition (and that I asked during my interview at my new company) are:

It’s all about the work, so what will I actually be doing?

I am in it for the work and for creating things that will help both students and other educators. I knew that in order to join another organization, I had to have a clear idea of the work that I would be doing, in this case as a learning experience designer. What type of content will I be developing? How much autonomy will I have? Will I be able to advocate for myself both for work I want to do and work I don’t feel comfortable doing or doesn’t align with my values? Will the work challenge me and push me out of my comfort zone? These are all questions I asked and considered, just as I would with any position within the public education world.

What opportunities will I have to grow?

One thing that makes me cringe is the idea of plateauing—no longer learning or being challenged. I’ve been lucky to have amazing opportunities during my career in public education to grow, with abundant chances for professional learning, both provided by institutions I’ve served and ones that I’ve been given the autonomy to seek out on my own. In moving to the private sector, this was a non negotiable for me—I needed to know that my new organization would invest in my professional growth, seeing this as a way to strengthen the company and the work I am able to create. 

How can I stay connected to the classroom—both to students and other educators?

As a learning experience designer, I create content that is used in many places, including the classroom, so it’s imperative that I remain connected to both students and other educators. In leaving public service I didn’t want to lose touch with actual teaching and learning. While I know that I won’t be able to be in classrooms with students and teachers everyday, I chose a company that values this connection and is open to me exploring ways to continue to have my relationships with schools and districts thrive. Whether this means volunteering in classrooms or at events, field testing content that I’m working on, or leading professional learning opportunities for other educators, working for an organization that makes time and space for this is so valuable to me.

I can’t view my transition from public education to the private sector as sacrificing my educator values. If I do, I will fall away from the reason I became an educator in the first place—to serve children. Instead, I’m choosing to rewrite the narrative and use my new position to leverage change and impact within the education world. Right now, this is by creating content that is meaningful, engrossing, and compelling for both students and other educators. And because I joined a private company that realizes the value of each of the people on its team, I feel confident that there is only forward momentum from here.

Forward Motion

I’ve officially lived in Portland, OR for 150 days. And while I’ve been somewhat quiet about my experiences, outside of sharing on social media, my life has been anything but quiet.

There is so much I want to share that I’ve been thinking about, reflecting on, rolling around in my brain, but for now, I’m settling on sharing my intentions for 2019.

While goals are usually a destination we work towards, intentions are more like a lens to see your actions through. In my works with educators, I’ve found that oftentimes when we create goals, we become so entrenched in meeting them that we lose the power of the journey along the way. This is why I put more emphasis on creating intentions for my daily, professional life, rather than listing all of the outcomes I hope to get to.
I wrote more about goals and intentions here.

With all the changes that have occurred in my life over the past 150 days since I moved to the West Coast, my intentions for 2019 are few. But my hope is to allow myself the freedom to have perspective and reflect more on what I’m doing daily to grow and better serve others. The outcome will always be evolving, so I am not putting all of my energy into molding it to what I envision. With the help of the educators and students I serve, and my PLN, I’ll get there, wherever there is.

My 2019 Intentions:

Give myself the freedom and space to create
What does the creative process look like for me?
How can I feel more comfortable being creative?
How can I feed my creative nature?

Pay attention to how I schedule my time
Am I scheduling in time to be creative?
Am I honoring the time I schedule in for my own growth?
How is my growth reflected on my calendar?

Take advantage of opportunities to learn
What am I doing to create opportunities for participatory culture and take advantage of opportunities to participate?
Am I reading other’s words, opinions, and discourse and sharing these things?
How am I curating these experiences?

Share the work I get to do
Am I writing about my experiences?
Is my use of social media in my professional life intentional?
Am I having conversations about the work I get to do with educators and non-educators alike?

Leaving

I’ve been staring at a blank post for almost an hour now. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the goodbye that is about to happen. A dear friend told me to imagine I was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

“Tell me, Tavia… I hear you have some news to share with the folks at home watching…”

Silly, yes, but it made me smile.

I’m not sure there’s any way to do this, other than to just do it. So here goes…

Last week I accepted a position with Evergreen Public Schools in Vancouver, Washington. At the beginning of August, I’m going to pack my car, one of my cats, and drive 3,000 miles across the country to start a new adventure.

It’s hard for me to articulate what my time as an educator in North Carolina has meant to me. For the past 14 years, I’ve served as an English teacher, school librarian, and digital learning coach. I’ve cared about and loved thousands of students, been inspired by hundreds of colleagues, and had the pleasure to serve educators from literally one end of the state to the other.

At our last convening of NCDLCN, the West cohort coaches and mentors surprised me on my birthday with an impromptu singing of Happy Birthday. I cried because they and you are my people, my family, and a constant source of support, strength, and inspiration to me.

It is my hope that even though I will be on the other coast, our relationships will continue to grow – that we will remain connected – that this isn’t a goodbye, rather a “See you later!”

Thank you for being so compelling. Thank you for working so hard. Thank you for constantly reminding me of my why. Thank you for being in my life and letting me be a part of yours.

 

Creating Ownership

One of my primary functions (and one of my favorites) as a digital innovation coach is to create, design, and facilitate professional learning experiences for educators. Sometimes this is for an entire school district, and sometimes for individual schools. Sometimes I facilitate for large groups and other times for small cohorts of educators. Regardless of the demographics, the planning process always includes creating shared ownership.

As a reflective practitioner, I realize that I can provide opportunities to learn, but those opportunities have to be attached to a shared vision. We often discuss what good professional learning can look like and how to use data to inform our decisions, but less often do we take time to actually think about and unpack the process of planning together to create ownership. Every relationship I create with districts and schools that I serve is built on the idea that we are working together to multiply our efforts rather than duplicate them. Some of the things I find important (and therefore communicate with them) are:

  • Involving leadership in the professional learning process each step along the way
  • Creating professional learning experiences with them, not doing it to them
  • Creating a culture of transparency
  • Changing and updating professional learning experiences to be in sync with the evolving needs of the school/district

When I begin a new relationship with a district or school, I always begin with a meeting to discuss their needs, the vision for the project and beyond, and what they want for their educators and students. These meetings range from phone calls, face to face, and video chats. I also have a shared document in Drive with an agenda and meeting notes. Like all of my agendas, these notes build on each other with the most recent meeting notes and agenda at the top. I find that by keeping the notes and agenda in one place, it’s very easy in later meeting to go back to points that we made prior. And while some meetings are more informal, having an agenda helps us to prioritize and value both each other’s time and effort. You can see an example of a meeting agenda below. 

Regardless of how we meet, I start by listening. I ask them to begin with the why. Then we move on to the who, what, and the how. Instead of beginning by asserting what I think will help them, I give them time to lay a foundational context. And what I find is that this usually leads to them feeling validated and heard.

I am very clear in telling project leaders that I will be including them in each step of the process – and more importantly, I explain to them what this can look like. For some, inclusion means communicating the what and how. For others, this means allowing them to help create content. And for some, inclusion is us facilitating professional learning together, as a team. Whatever they decide they are comfortable with, this is how we proceed. Oftentimes, we begin with simply communicating and by the end of a project we’ve created a partnership where they are creating and facilitating as well. Creating ownership and buy in for the professional learning process helps to ensure that the work is sustainable and that the enthusiasm and motivation will continue once the contract has ended. It also helps to give leadership more confidence in their efforts to provide quality learning experiences for educators.

It’s easy in the beginning stages of planning to meet and plan together, but it can be harder to continue this along the way. People get busy, situations arise, life happens. However, I am very clear, from the beginning, that I will work hard to bring us together not just before the professional learning starts, but in the interim between learning experiences. As a team, we have to share in the vision of the project, not just in the beginning, but as it evolves and we move forward. After each professional learning experience, I reach out to project leadership and set a convenient (for them) time and date to meet to discuss the participant feedback (from the previous session’s evaluation) and their changing needs. A few days before we meet, I share the updated agenda and notes with them, which always includes a two column chart with a summary of the evaluation data (GROWS) and my observations. This gives them more context for the meeting and also helps to show them how their educators are using what they learn, what they need/want moving forward, and where they struggle.

After we discuss the evaluation results and in general how the professional learning felt, we move on to visioning the next session. I come prepared with ideas and generally take the lead during this time (this is what they pay me for), but I include the leadership team in the process, listening to and considering their ideas alongside my own. Many times the professional learning session starts to take shape with activities growing out of a combination of the team’s collective creativity. This is also where, if they are interested or ready, we discuss using their capacity to facilitate activities and parts of the larger session. Not only does the leadership experience more ownership of the professional learning experience when they’re involved at this level, but this also helps to create transparency. They know what the day (session) will look like. They can prepare for and communicate this to participants with a sense of enthusiasm for what’s to come.

As we near the end of a contract, the communication doesn’t end. Even after the last professional learning day is over, I plan a final meeting with the leadership team to discuss the evolution of the project as a whole – both the GLOWS and GROWS that participants have alluded to in their feedback, the scope of the work (which often amazes them), and how they can move forward maintaining the effort and enthusiasm created by the professional learning experiences so far. We also discuss the known and identified capacity both within their team and their district or school and how they can utilize these people as leaders for the vision.

Nothing about my process is revolutionary – it’s all grounded in good communication, transparency, and team work. When working with districts and schools I always try to remember that opportunity without vision is fruitless, it causes effort to be duplicated, rather than multiplied. My goal is to focus on the question, “How are we multiplying our effort to serve educators and children?” This is what I lead with and in hopes leave the district or school considering as they move forward.

Screenshot with annotations created using Nimbus.