Mindset & Motivation | Jul 9, 2013
How to completely waste your time in PD sessions
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
How to completely waste your time in PD sessions
By Angela Watson
Most of us will have to take part in professional development sessions either this summer or the week before school starts, and let’s be honest, much of it won’t be very interesting. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how teachers can get more out of these mandatory inservices, and I’ve realized there are a few choices participants can make that will determine whether the training is at least moderately valuable or a complete waste of time. The tips that follow are things I’ve observed teachers doing (and have done myself) that resulted in PD being only slightly less painful that stabbing yourself in the eye with a fork. Try them out at your own risk.
Give your administrators full control over your professional learning.
Refuse to implement any new technology or teaching strategies until you’ve received more boring PD on it. Make it your mantra that you will only learn what you’re told to learn. Let your principal decide what is important for you to be an expert in, and only attend trainings on those topics. After all, building your own professional learning network (PLN) and reading books and blog posts on professional topics you care about gives you ownership of your learning and empowers you as an educator. Is that what you really want?
Immediately point out all the reasons why a new idea won’t work.
I’ve totally been guilty of this. In fact, I thought I doing the group a favor by saying what everyone else was thinking but was afraid to speak out loud. Now, I realize I was just derailing the learning of the entire group by forcing them to think about the limitations before they’d fully considered the possibilities. I’ve found that I learn a lot more when I just listen, reflect on all the options as they’re presented, and then brainstorm with the group or a colleague at the end of the session.
Focus on the three kids in your class for whom the new ideas will be completely ineffective.
It’s tempting to block out the fact that the majority of your class could really benefit from the strategy, and spend the entire PD session fuming about how useless it is because little Johnny will never go for it. But let’s face it: there will always be at least three kids in your class with whom ANY teaching strategy will crash and burn. There are no teaching strategies that work 100% of the time with 100% of students, so it makes more sense to listen to the PD session with a full range of kids in mind.
Hold side conversations the whole time.
This is a fantastic way to ruin a training, because talking will ensure that the PD becomes useless for your colleagues, as well. Bonus points for holding side conversations about how the ideas you’re hearing will never, ever work with your students. However, even on-topic side conversations will be enough to distract everyone around you and throw your presenter slightly off of his or her game. There’s nothing more awkward than one adult trying to get the attention of other adults in a professional setting, so chattering endlessly is a great way to make your presenter resort to annoying kindergarten-style attention grabbers which you can also complain about.
Jot down notes on a piece of paper and stick it in your file cabinet, never to be seen again.
If you do manage to learn something in the PD session, be sure to keep it to yourself! If you blog about it, share it on social media, or talk with your colleagues about their thoughts, you’re likely to encourage them to try new things and improve their teaching. Sharing your learning also gives you the opportunity to reflect on what you heard and figure out how to apply it to your classroom practice. So, if you want to make sure the principles you learned never have an impact on students, bury those notes in a folder! Sharing and collaborating will only lead to more learning.
What’s your advice for teachers on how to get more (or less!) out of the professional development they attend? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
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Seems really simple to just be as courteous as we wish our students were. FOCUS!
Pat, EVERY time I’m sitting in a training, I think, “How in the world do our students do this all day?!” It’s really an eye opener to be in the position of a learner and realize how hard it is to sit passively and listen for any length of time.
You’ll probably get fired but secretly call the office and have yourself paged. It helps to have a friend in the office. Then excuse yourself and go do all the work you still need to do before the kids come.
I’ve seen teachers grading papers, cutting out art projects, reading emails, all sorts of more productive and useful things than being in meetings.
Unfortunately my district has gone viral with some of the routine mandatory trainings. They use a youtube style video and you have to watch ( wink wink) them on your own time. Last time I heard about some teachers ( not at my school) that went to the computer lab, fired up all 25 videos on different computers, and watched all of them at once… I was so jealous of them. What innovative and yet compliant professionals teachers are!
I’ve seen those things, too, Randy. I think if teachers are doing those things on a regular basis in staff meetings, the admin needs to take a good hard look at how the meetings are being conducted. Can some of the info be disseminated in writing so there are less meetings? Can the teachers have input as to the meeting topics? Can some things be brought up only in committee meetings so the rest of staff doesn’t have to sit and listen to it?
It sounds like your district in on the right path with a “flipped staff meeting” method–I like the idea of teachers watching short videos on their own time…but then you have to meet in groups to talk about what you learned and apply it. Ideally those group meetings would be much shorter than regular staff meetings since teachers watched the videos on their own time. And of course, the videos have to be meaningful and relevant…sounds like that was not the case in your district!
This was posted by one of my friends who is a teacher (I am not). I had to read it, because it sounded so interesting. I just wanted to say your points are excellent, and easily translate to other disciplines and professions besides teaching. I realize these types of sessions may be tedious and dry, but I think it’s interesting that there are likely many students who bring the same type of attitude of detachment to the classroom, and teachers are likely to find those to be their most challenging and frustrating students. It really comes down to being caring, conscientious and respectful, in spite of how difficult that may be. I especially like the point about having side conversations and distracting others. I often find myself being on the receiving end of that and trying to remain polite while trying to return the attention to the speaker at the front of the room – so frustrating for all involved! Thank you for an excellent piece!
Thanks, Jenni, it’s always great to hear the perspective of someone outside our field! You made some great connections to what happens in the classroom.
Our system did a week long technology PD in June. It was not mandatory and teachers & support staff could pick and choose the classes they wanted or needed. I was the instructor for 2 sessions on using smartboards everyday. I used the same exact techniques that I use in the classroom to engage my audience, teachers PK – HS. All but 2 (out of ab0ut 50) of my evaluations were positive, the comments those 2 wrote were obviously teachers that should have taken another class. So from a presenters point of view….when given a choice, teachers need to make sure the classes are really what they need.
When I am in a mandatory PD, I find I need to sit away from distracting teachers and only take what I need during that time. That doesn’t mean with my pen and paper that I can’t perfect some of my doodles!!!
I love the idea of staff picking and choosing their sessions! I’ve done some PD work in a fabulous school that operates that way. They called theirs the “tech fair” and teachers selected what topics they wanted to learn about…and the choices they had were based largely on the results of a staff survey earlier in the year.
Would you believe that I once had a principal that was considerate enough to plan the meetings so that the topics were organized by grade level. He often allowed the K/1 teachers on the staff to leave early if the content did not apply to their grade level.
Rather than appreciating this, one of the upper grade teachers COMPLAINED that we didn’t have to “sit there” as long as they did, so it was decided that we again had to sit through a whole bunch of material that was irrelevant to our grade level (thank you very much- NOT.)
You know, some teachers really should just RETIRE.
Oh my gosh, Heidi, that happened at one of my schools when I was a teacher! The grades 3-5 teachers were annoyed that they had to sit through extra trainings while the K-2 teachers got to leave. (I think they were mostly annoyed because the training was on state testing which K-2 doesn’t do, and that’s a huge point of contention in itself.) The guidance counselor told them, “K-2 teachers have their own testing to do, don’t worry, there will be a day soon when they sit in PD and you don’t.” It’s funny how much we are like our students–it’s not faaaaaiiirrr! LOL