Education Week - February 18, 2015 - Special Report - 6

Study Finds Poor
Execution of 'Job
Embedded' PD
By Stephen Sawchuk
Despite widespread belief that on-the-job
professional development is superior to the
"spray and pray" workshop model, many
teachers seem to be unsatisfied with the quality
of their in-school offerings, according to a
new report.
It's not that training options like coaching,
lesson observation, and professional learning
communities, in which groups of teachers
plan together, aren't good ideas. In fact, the report-written
the Boston Consulting Group
and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation-emphasizes that such practices
are theoretically grounded in the best research
on teacher pd. The problem appears
to lie in the execution of such activities-too
often, professional learning community time
turns into "social hour," coaching is viewed as
administrative monitoring, and lesson observation
is superficial. (The Gates Foundation
also provides support for Education Week's coverage
of college- and career-ready standards.)
In other words, the missing link is how
these activities are structured and carried out
at schools. And that's a big research hole, the
report says: "There is little evidence to support
which model of coaching (e.g. technical coaching,
team coaching, peer coaching) is most effective,"
it notes. Similar problems were found
with plcs.
As the accompanying chart shows, principals
and other district leaders overwhelmingly
think that they should be doing
more lesson observation, coaching, and
common planning time. But teachers said
that they were not really satisfied with
those efforts, placing their plc time even
DIFFERENCES OF OPINION
Survey information collected by the Boston Consulting Group shows that while district leaders believe their schools need more jobembedded
professional-development offerings, teachers have tended to be dissatisfied with the implementation of such programs.
TEACHERS
Overall, how
would you rate your
satisfaction with the
PD offered to teachers
in your school district/school?
LOCAL
EDUCATION AGENCYLEVEL
PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENT
LEADERS
22
5
0
-6
-9
-10
-26
-45
COURSES
CONFERENCES
LESSON OBSERVATION
COACHING
INTENSIVE SUMMER TRAINING
SELF-GUIDED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
WORKSHOPS
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES
NET SATISFACTION
SOURCE: Boston Consulting Group
below that of workshops.
These issues are not just a matter of semantics,
either; the report estimates that
$18 billion is spent annually on professional
development, and most of it on internal
investments. (Some $3 billion was
provided to external providers such as "independent
consultants.")
Barriers to better practices include not
enough time in teachers' schedules and
school leaders being overwhelmed with
administrative tasks, the report asserts.
The report relied on surveys and focus
groups with 1,300 teachers, professional-development
directors, principals, and pd providers,
as well as a supplementary survey of
1,600 additional teachers.
The report also indicates that the much-maligned
workshops remain the most common
form of teacher PD, with over 80 percent of
respondents reporting that they'd spent some
time in one. Only two-thirds spent time in a
plc, but they spent more hours in such meetings
than in workshops.
In all, the report says, efforts need to be
made to make the on-the-job professional
development more relevant, more hands-on
(with strategies that can be used immediately),
and sustained over time.
This article was originally published on the
Teacher Beat blog: www.edweek.org/go/
teachbeat
NET INCREASE
25
18
84
82
57
45
22
74
If it were totally
up to you, do you believe
your district should
deliver more or less PD to
teachers relative to the
current amount?
CHAT HIGHLIGHTS: Creating the Conditions for Teacher Collaboration
In late 2014, Education Week Teacher held a live online chat on
how schools can create the conditions for more effective teaching.
The guests for the chat were Melinda George, the president of
the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future, and
Richard A. Carranza, the superintendent of the San Francisco
Unified School District. Many of the audience questions focused
on the need for greater teacher collaboration in schools.
Here are some excerpts from the discussion.
How are schools and districts that
are finding ways for teachers to
meet pulling it off? Do they have
successful strategies?
MELINDA GEORGE: oEcd's 2014 Teaching
and Learning International
Survey found that American teachers
are spending more time than
any other country, including some
very high-performing countries,
doing instruction. While this may
sound reasonable at face value,
it doesn't account for time to collaborate
and plan with peers. In
those districts and schools where
collaboration is happening, they
are finding the time by eliminating
administrative duties (i.e.,
lunch duty, after-school meetings,
and recess duty). They are also rethinking
their class schedules to
allow more blocks of planning time
rather than just fitting it to an individual's
personal schedule.
What kind of policies can districts
put in place to support schools in
providing collaboration time for
teachers, or does it come down to
the principal doing this?
RICHARD CARRANZA: Districts can
have a huge impact on setting the
conditions for collaboration time.
Some of the policies can include
the setting of school start times
that will allow schools to carve out
time specifically for collaboration;
having a district policy requiring
classroom walkthroughs (which
encourage shared instructional
practices); policies adopting 21stcentury
learning as part of the
curriculum; including professionaldevelopment
support for leaders in
scheduling and planning for collaboration
time within the work
day; and requiring principal and
teacher pre- and post-observation
discussions about student learning
as part of the evaluation process.
These are just a fraction of the
district policies and practices that
may help create the time for collaboration
in our schools.
Many school districts have
adopted professional learning
communities to facilitate teacher
collaboration. But sometimes
plcs are viewed negatively by
teachers. How do you overcome
that sentiment?
MELINDA GEORGE: We need to rebuild
trust among teachers
that plcs are designed to support
their professional learning.
plcs have to be part of the
learning goals of the school and
they have to help teachers find
answers to their own classroom
concerns/situations.
How do I find a good plc? What
traits make a plc worthwhile?
MELINDA GEORGE: plcs require time
to develop group norms and routines
around addressing problems
of practice, reviewing student work
and data, and giving feedback to
peers.
RICHARD CARRANZA: Regarding good
plcs, I would also add that they
should be transparent and that
the products from the plc should
be available to colleagues ubiquitously.
Have
you found that there is one
style or approach to professional
development that teachers are
resistant to, because they see
it as unhelpful, wasteful, or
counterproductive?
RICHARD CARRANZA: I've also heard
"pd" referred to as "Pretty
Dumb." That usually happens
when the pd is top-down, unconnected
to work in the classroom
and of very limited duration
(the dreaded "drive by," one-time
training session). I've found the
most successful pd is the product
of tightly aligned conversations
around the classroom
instructional needs of teachers,
with teachers having a voice in
the development or construction
of the pd, and a multi-step
approach to the delivery of pd.
By that I mean that there are
multiple sessions (preferably
not day-long sessions) in which
teachers are able to engage in
new learning, have an opportunity
to take it back to their
classrooms and try it out, come
back for sharing of the process
and outcomes with colleagues,
and then engage in new learning.
This type of structure has
resulted in a deeper mastery of
the pd concepts in my experience,
and has also created the
environment that teachers have
been able build on. n
Read the complete chat transcript at
www.edweek.org/go/collab_chat.
6 Education WEEk 2015 CALENDAR OF EVENTS & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DIRECTORY www.edweek.org/go/calendar

http://www.edweek.org/go/teachbeat http://www.edweek.org/go/teachbeat http://www.edweek.org/go/collab_chat http://www.edweek.org/go/calendar

Education Week - February 18, 2015 - Special Report

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