8 Steps for Great Professional Development
Great professional development (PD) should feel empowering. It’s a journey, not an event. Along this journey we visit many places to acquire new knowledge, open ourselves up to new perspectives, share with others what we have learned, and demonstrate how this journey has contributed to our growth. My hope is that in preparation for this Fall you have taken time to reflect on the journey your team has been on, engage with senior leadership to understand their expectations of you, and start mapping your professional development journey to overcome the continued challenges ahead.
Professional Development (PD), not to be confused with training, is always associated with change. The purpose of PD is to develop awareness, knowledge, dispositions, and/or skills with the intent to move from some current state to an envisioned future state. As educators, we are constantly having to manage change, and often it is the change we weren’t consulted on and involves more meetings, burdensome training, and poorly articulated evaluative measures.
Now is the time of year we can break the punitive training cycle, get buy-in to key initiatives for next Fall and ensure PD is a journey, not an event. The feature article in this newsletter is my 8-Step Guide for Planning Great Professional Development, these steps will help you to:
- Challenge assumptions associated with change, to truly understand the ‘WHY’;
- Identify who needs to champion the cause for change;
- Craft a vision for change that will compel and motivate staff;
- Seek buy-in and commitment from staff;
- Develop guiding policies to empower teams to craft their own PD journey;
- TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN;
- Document and share successful change; and
- Be relentless to ensure change sticks.
The professional development journey begins when we first become aware of the need for change. This is when staff starts developing assumptions and narratives that will either support or challenge the need for change. Control that narrative early and recognize that those early stages are part of the professional development journey. Steps 1-4 should start now and carry into the start of the new school year. Step 5 will take the better part of August and September. In this month’s feature article, 8 Steps for Great Professional Development, I help you understand how to ensure every staff member is not only prepared for their PD journey, but has a good map to ensure they get where we want them to go.
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