Jennifer Gonzalez (Cult of Pedagogy), PD is Getting So Much Better!! (March 4, 2018).

With the rapid change to the NextGen Bar Exam (even California seem to be moving that way!), law professors and deans have started thinking hard about how to provide Professional Development (PD) for faculty as we change our teaching and assessment to align with the FirstGen Bar Exam. It is no small task, as we have been teaching and assessing our doctrinal classes in a knowledge-focused, simple application model for more than 100 years. The need for excellent PD related to the NextGen Bar Exam has me googling PD. This article offers seven excellent alternatives to having some purported expert stand in front of the room and talk at us. Below are a few excerpts, including two examples.

. . . I started down this path thinking that lots of districts were still stuck in a one-size-fits-all, sit-and-get, whole-school PD model, where the entire staff is herded into one room to listen to one expert talk. I’ve been the person on that stage, and even in the best of circumstances, I still get that uncomfortable feeling when I look out over the crowd and see the folded arms, the faces turned down to screens, the bouncing, bored feet. It sucks to be the presenter in those situations.

But evidently, that model is disappearing . . .

Here are two of the suggestions:

1. UNCONFERENCES

HOW THEY WORK

You might know these as EdCamps or TeachMeets, but the principle is the same: An unconference is a grassroots conference where the content is provided by the attendees themselves—not outside experts. It used to be that these were organized primarily as separate events from “official” school PD, but now administrators are bringing the model in-house to BE the actual PD.

Although there are variations, unconferences basically work this way:

1. A time and day are chosen, along with a venue (probably your school), where available rooms for sessions are identified.
2. Using a spreadsheet (a Google Sheet is ideal), the day is divided into short blocks of time. Sometimes these are just 20 minutes long, other times they may be up to an hour.
3. People volunteer to run sessions based on their areas of expertise or things they have learned: teaching methods, tech tools, etc. . . .

4. PERSONAL ACTION PLANS

HOW THEY WORK

In this model, individual teachers set their own personal learning goals, along with a specific plan for reaching them. Often, there is also a plan for making their results public with colleagues.

EXAMPLES

• Cohort 21 is a year-long professional development opportunity hosted by an association of independent schools in Ontario, Canada. In the program, teachers meet four times from October through April to design and implement personal action plans.
• Many schools, like Noble Crossing Elementary in Noblesville, Indiana, have implemented their own teacher Genius Hour. Teachers are given regular time to pursue specific, teaching-related interests. “Topics are selected at the beginning of the year,” says instructional coach Lauren Smith. “Then during our district early release days, in lieu of typical PD, teachers and staff have time to work toward their learning plan either independently or with a learning team. Throughout the process there is time to reflect and adjust learning plans or even topics. Some teachers and staff will either switch topics, or start a new topic if they feel their current project has run its course” . . .