Professional Learning efficacy requires time, resources for success
Professional Learning is ineffective as Gulamhussein writes in her policy report for the Center for Public Education is no-brainer to many teachers – lack of time to learn and implement new strategies. It’s a mantra that every classroom teachers hears and sees if they spend any time teaching students. There is a lot of good PL out there, but the ineffectiveness of teacher learning is systemic, schools and administrators often lack the resources and infrastructure to produce consistent results.
I taught in three separate school districts over a 19 year period (I was at one school for 14 years continuously) but within that one district there was a great disparity between schools in socio-economic backgrounds, funding, teacher turnover and geography. I was hard to recognize that 3 high schools within one district could be so different.
Dr. Harapnuik referred to “show and go” PL and as tech savvy teacher, I didn’t wait for permission to guide my teachers, I just asked them what they wanted. Sure, we took care of business required, but I tried to squeeze as much time into learning that teachers could bring back an implement in their classroom the next day. I always told my teachers that technology is little like eating a new food, it’s better to take little bites and digest what you have before loading up at the buffet. During an ongoing semester, it is difficult to implement a big project, so I encouraged teachers to make little goals that build toward their big goal. And I always had an open door and could be contacted via phone, text or email for support and if I needed I’d visit their classroom after school. It’s never easy to teach tech, our teachers are like our students and they come to us much like the teachers in Kristin Daniels video.
Teaching at the college level, PL is a whole different story. Within the most of the colleges at Lamar and from what colleagues at other schools tell me, most universities have a orientation for new instructors but it doesn’t emphasize teaching so much as campus policy and guidelines. I do see a change, but most PL is self-directed and at personal expense. Yes, you have folks that might be doing research with the backing of a grant, but it is seldom focused on teaching and learning styles.
However, over the last two years within the Department of Communication, the department chair, dean and faculty have been looking hard at retention and graduation rates and we implemented an in-depth surveying and questionaire process to evaluate teaching efficacy. The results were pretty shocking and while not specifically addressing teaching and learning styles – those issues were among the top concerns of students and graduates.
One issue a colleague and I focused on was literally “What are students doing in their courses?” My colleague Andy Coughlan focused on journalism track students and I focused on advertising track students. To assess their work, we decided to implement an eportfolio program to monitor student work and to provide a platform and forum for students to get feedback on their published work for the University Press (UP). This is the basis for my innovation plan for the DLL program. While the UP fared well in the student assessments we wanted to identify gaps in degree plans where the student learning environment was not consistent effective. One of the goals is to identify weaknesses in instruction and address weak instructional areas and apply concepts and techniques used at the UP to improve those areas.
Collegiate instructors have some more flexibility in enhancing their PL but without institutional or departmental support, it won’t be consistent or even applied. This process is bringing the idea of instructional support as vital component to helping our learners be successful and achieve their learning goals.
This innovation plan is approaching the scope of a departmental initiative for implementation. The UP program is serving as a model (and has been since Fall 2016) for what will hopefully come to fruition as departmental initiative by 2018. An observation is that K12 schools can actually be more nimble in implementing change than higher learning institutions.
To address PL, first we are addressing our positive influencers within the department and identify our dissenters. Our findings have been mixed so far, but most of the faculty and staff are favorable to the concept of instructional support. Our dissenters and influencers are divided into essentially two camps – those that take a COVA-ish approach to authentic and experiential learning/teaching model and career-preparation approach versus those that prefer a more rhetorical, research orientated view and approach to instruction of communication-related fields.
Developing alternative approaches to dissenters and influencers alike is paramount in implementing the innovation plan. The most persuasive is essentially faculty and staff can collaborate in developing their own plan (a very COVA approach) versus having to implement one the provost chooses.
The Mirage report highlights some of these same concerns and I think requires us as educators to delve even deeper. In my environment, content is king and learning is not always a top concern. It’s not to say college professors don’t care about their students – I’m not saying that at all, but often the requirement and pressure to publish, get grants and do research outweigh the needs of students sometimes. In addition, the evolving nature in which education is being delivered, the social reaction and assessment of education and a whole host of factors makes learning styles more impactful. I really think the very structure of education is on the cusp on fundamental and profound change from K12 schools to higher ed. This change is that schools as we know them will no longer exist and just like any product education needs to give its consumers what they want and need in the way consumers want it. There is much more nuance to this I know, but that could be a whole book alone.
Professional learning standards help create guideline for consistent approaches to learning and instruction efficacy. The standards are not meant to be cure-all or an absolutism, but to provide a guide that teachers are active participants in learning to be better teachers.
