Being away from work for a few days can be good time to reflect and consider what could be done better next time. In the last few weeks of the summer term, I am bogged down with timetable issues and raising my head to think about the issues of improving teacher education for practising teachers and also improving communication channels has had to wait until I am a little more relaxed.
I have already designed the basic structure for next year’s in house CPD programme. Having paid attention to comments from staff, I have reduced the length of twilight sessions and thus been able to create more of them. I have tried to fit in all the generic topics requested, including more time for people to work together in teams that go across subject barriers and also more time to work in departments (outside of ‘meeting’ time) on developing resources and other curriculum design issues.
The programme still leads to the College of Teachers Certificate/Diploma of Educational Studies (COES/DOES) and at least one teacher will be working on some research for them next year. The blog undertaken by one student support assistant shows an excellent example of someone evaluating her own development. http://splatshs.wetpaint.com/page/Ana%27s+COES+blog http://www.collegeofteachers.ac.uk/
Yet I still have some niggling doubts. Is there enough differentiation? Do I make good use of Open Educational Resources? Aren’t ‘meetings’ also CPD - and if not, why not? How do I measure the impact?
Heads of department have asked for performance management procedures to be slightly different in September so that the review meeting not only discusses which in-house and externally provided CPD the teacher intends to undertake but also which peers they intend to observe and why. We will try to resurrect the CPD directory via the school VLE (where staff offer various skills to share with others). This summer I’ll try to put all the resources and teacher/associate staff reflections from the wikis on to the VLE as well. Hopefully, we can produce our own journal in school of all the reflections.
What next? I asked for ideas on Twitter and also searched a few other tweets. Here is a selection of ideas:-
@NSRiazat Wikis and Learning http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2010/07/wikis-and-learning-60-resources.html
@hullteacher CPD works in association with time to implement. If not then CPD is ineffective cos people forget.
@Janshs @ianaddison @primarypete_ ha! that gives me an idea too ... I could put RSS of various resources sites on to our school
@thegreatgar the prob with cpd is that it is often arranged for you rather than occurring at the optimum time for learning
@thegreatgar this year we gave staff much more time for themselves rather than meetings etc, seems to be working (mostly individual)
@primarypete_ changing way I use Delicious. Out with google reader of new links. In with big network of educator users to search: http://bit.ly/b0aTbe
@janwebb21 RT @colport: I am liking this style of wiki - http://orbs.com/ #edtech #ukedchat > looks really cool judging from the video trailer!
We already have weekly 1 hour sessions as part of directed time (though staff do no have to attend all of them). Up until now I have designed these around a series of workshops around particular topics of interest to different people. Next year, I have built in more ‘team’ time. My biggest concern is how to evaluate whether or not teachers are actually learning anything. The COES shows that some are – but that is voluntary. Are the rest accomplishing anything by attending? In one large session, I noticed at least one teacher off task and doing something on a computer that was probably work related but was nothing to do with the topic in hand. How do I engage at least most of the staff?
Perhaps the way forwards is to have ‘double’ sessions some weeks – there might be the usual generic sessions and also some sessions where ‘coaches’ are available for certain issues. Of course, staff can always just work on their own – how do I encourage them to evaluate?#
How do other schools approach this – please share or comment if you can. Thank you.
Hello Jan
ReplyDeleteOne way to explore the question of how to design CPD is to look back on one's own career and think about those inputs that made the biggest difference to us. Passive, information-giving inputs have a place as an updating mechanism but I would guess that experiences that allowed people to actively learn are those we will most remember as significant. (Which of course is what we say about good learning for pupils too. No difference really.)
People like to talk about themselves rather than listen, so basing sessions around this model can accomplish a lot. Good questions and a tightly orchestrated structure will be the key to making this work. Anticipating the flow with prompts, summarising, resetting the focus, drawing out the conclusions are characteristics of this approach.
But I would think that one should design CPD backwards from the required outcome. A legitimate criticism of much CPD is that it doesn't always have noticeable outcomes for the institution that invested the time in it. CPD can make people feel better about themselves and therapeutic CPD is legitimate - but it should also be productive in other senses too. CPD might benefit the individual who may feel better informed, but that may not justify the investment. One-shot CPD can often be like this. A CPD theme that is revisited over the course of a school year could be more productive.
So I think an early question will be how will we check that the proposed CPD will have an impact?
Designing a session around impact will mean developing a commitment and a belief in the value of the impact and agreement to the responsibilities involved. A question to participants about how to assure impact or quantify it will usually produce a suitable list - and a possible buy-in to participating in achieving those outocmes.
You mention certification. Recognition is an important part of making a learning commitment. Identifying the personal and institutional rewards during the design of CPD and planning it so both are clear could be rewarding in many senses. It could involve recognition by an outside body, but it could simply result in a virtual tick against making a contribution to the values or outputs of the school. A follow-up record of the CPD with commitments made and conclusions drawn is the minimum formality really in this respect.
Grading proposed CPD in terms of potential impact will help determine the level of resourcing it deserves. If it is first order, e.g. raises pupil achievement, it deserves a high level of resourcing, and so on. CPD also requires a management commitment that extends beyond the end of the course. What percentage of CPD sessions don't achieve what they could do because they aren't followed up, or people don’t find the time to do what they said they would do. Providing time to do what people said they would do on the last CPD session might be more productive than in organising a new session that may go the same way.
Just a few rather disjointed thoughts.
All the best
Mike Bostock