Tag: professional development

Posted on in Education

Infographic: Outline of ESSA Goals

Here’s an EdTrust infographic about the seven key goals of ESSA.  Thoughts on two of my favorite points are below the infographic.

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Point five and six are probably the most important. Five acknowledges that while parents play a huge role in their children’s academic development, ineffective teachers, consecutive ineffective teaching in particular teaching, is a huge problem in low income, minority school communities. Now, this isn’t to say I agree that three consecutive years of “good” teaching is sufficient to close the achievement gap. Nor does it mean that I’m in favor of punishing teachers who aren’t continuosly meeting academic goals. I entirely understand that there are many factors that play into how “effective” a teacher is. A lot of that lack of effectiveness has to do with a lack of effective professional development for teachers. What point five really highlights, to me, is the importance of mending this cycle that keeps the most disadvange students with the most ineffective teachers. A good start would be to track and follow how that cycle works, where it’s most pronounced and note any identifiable causes.

This sort of leads into the importance of point six, which is continued funding to low income communties. Im not too clear on what this funding includes specifically, but hopefully there’s an emphasis on Title II funding, which supports teachers’ professional development.

https://edtrust.org/the-equity-line/although-essa-provides-more-flexibility-feds-must-remain-steadfast-on-equity/?utm_source=Equity%20Express&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=ESSA&utm_campaign=ESEA

Posted on in Education

Teachers Get One-Size-Fits-All Training

Pauline Zdonek, a Illionois teacher and math coach, wrote a blog post on Edutopia about the importance of  effective professional development. I won’t go into too much detail, but I can’t agree with the point of her post anymore: Teachers, like students, benefit from development geared towards their individualized needs more than non-applicable, repetitive information. We should want each teacher to leave a session learning something useful, rather than waste their time, as Pauline recounts in her post. The problem, she says, is that administrators apply a one size fits all technique, which ends up being so vague, no one can benefit it.

While it is hard to provide granular, one-on-one professional development for every teacher, any attempt to “meet the teacher where she is at” is a safe bet on making an actual improvement to her skill set. Pauline recounts the all too often situation is a teacher not being asked what she would like to gain from a training session but given a requirement to attend sessions, regardless if she walks away with meaningful, useful guidance or not.

Why do we expect teachers to be amazing when we don’t understand or care for how they’re being taught? Professional development needs to be a more transparent component of education as a whole. Perhaps professional development organizers could meet with a wide range of teachers and discuss what could be covered over a series of future professional development trainings. Or, if meeting is not possible, have students fill out a detailed survey that leaves plenty of room for open-ended answers, which would be sufficient to engage the teacher about how they can be accommodated. With that said, genuine professional development for teachers that takes their needs into consideration would just let teachers know that, just as students’ individual needs matter, theirs do too…because they are…students, after all.

I know reformers don’t like accommodating teachers, but I think PD accommodation is worth the investment, no?