Meaningful professional learning

A recent success that I had was when I received feedback from our tiered or differentiated professional learning plans created for the teachers. Every year since I've been in education and I'm sure long before, teachers complain about participating in redundant, boring, and unproductive professional learning.

Before we planned our PL activities for the year, I created a survey so that I could get a true gauge of the needs of the teachers. Additionally, I sought information from the various content areas and teachers provided key information. The result was a tiered professional learning plan.

 Tier I focused on new teachers that need intensive supports with pedagogy and instructional planning.  Veteran teachers that were struggling in the classrooms and were on professional learning plan were also placed in Tier I. Tier II professional learning was focused school-wide initiatives such as technology integration, thinking maps, and rigor and relevance. Tier III was content-specific PL such as Gizmos for science teachers and document-based questions for social studies teachers.

Another component of the PL survey was finding out the optimal time for PL delivery. Teachers selected during planning time and Saturday PL. Teachers were not in favor of after school PL.  With the help of the academic coaches, individualized PL calendars were created. Mandatory PLs were pre-populated and teachers selected the other PL dates. Teachers provided their evaluators their tiered PL forms during the pre-evaluation conference and it was incorporated in the development of the professional goals.

It was great to hear from the teachers that PL was beneficial to them this year and moreover they incorporated the information presented into their classroom.