How
to use Tools for Teaching:
A Plan for Professional Development
The
Principal's Role
The principal is the key decision maker for training
and follow-through at the school site. Tactical
decisions that are made before training begins often
determine it's ultimate success or failure. Here
are some key tactical decisions:
- Principal Participation
The principal determines whether professional
development will be on the front burner
or the back burner. If professional development
is not on the principal's front burner, it will
not happen. Principals, therefore, must be advocates.
Giving permission is not enough. They must provide
time for training, protect it from being cross-scheduled,
and participate so they are as knowledgeable as
their teachers.
- School Site Focus
Training is best done by a team of mentor
quality teachers at each school site. Not only
will they draw colleagues into training by word-of-mouth
as they use the program in their classrooms, but
they will also be close at hand to problem solve
with trainees. If a trainee has difficulty with
a new procedure, they either get help quickly
from a friend or they are likely to dump it. Consequently,
school site training teams serve one of their
most important functions during follow-through.
- Build on Strength
The most willing and able teachers should
be trained first. Often they become co-trainers,
thereby expanding the school site training team.
In addition, their success should be shared with
the faculty so that more hesitant colleagues say,
"Well, if it can help them, I guess it can
help me too." While well intentioned, the
decision to train the most needy teachers first
reduces faculty buy-in by stigmatizing training
as remedial.
- Make Training Voluntary
Changing habits of teaching requires
that the teacher focus on new ways of doing things
as they begin each class period. They must want
to change. Rather than mandating that teachers
participate, it is better to create a critical
mass of success with strong teachers who
volunteer. One exception, however, is when a faculty
decides as a group to do a program. This often
sweeps nay-sayers into training with a minimum
of resistance.
- Start Slow, Go Slow
One of the hardest things for an administrator
to do once an excellent program demonstrates its
merit is to slow down. "Let's train
everyone on the faculty" can preempt the
systematic process of training that permits a
program to gain strength gradually as people discover
its value.
- Train and Retrain
Our tradition in professional development
is to train teachers in one program and then move
on to another program never looking back. Yet,
total mastery is a lot to ask of any first encounter.
Rather, we know that skills are built slowly and
incrementally. Continual work with a program over
an extended period of time gives teachers the
chance not only to gain comfort with new skills,
but also to iron out the wrinkles in classroom
application.
- Focus on Follow-Through
Think of successful professional development
at a school site as being a 3-year process. While
some teachers succeed beautifully from the beginning,
most will need more time to integrate new skills
into their lives and break old habits. Build a
process of peer collaboration that is ongoing,
and let that process provide the opportunity for
consolidation and integration of new learning
over time.
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