Professional Development

5 Non-Negotiables of Professional Development

Running any form of professional development can be a daunting task, whether it is at the district level, at a conference, etc. At the beginning of the planning process, facilitators often don’t have much more than a blank slate and a job such as, “You have one hour to teach your audience about [insert trendy topic here].” I have been leading professional development for a handful of years, and I have found that preparing with certain non-negotiables in mind helps to (1) provide me with a solid direction, and (2) assist in making my sessions that much more effective.

Here are my professional development non-negotiables:

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Total Participation Techniques

By Ross Cooper 1 Comment

For my latest district professional development day I conducted a one-hour presentation on the topic of student opportunities to respond, which focuses on how long each student has to be actively engaged in order to “make it through” the current lesson.

Featured is the slide deck that I created for the presentation, and I used Total Participation Techniques by Persida and William Himmele as the primary resource for my work. According to the book, “Total Participation Techniques (TPTs) are teaching techniques that allow for all students to demonstrate, at the same time, active participation and cognitive engagement in the topic being studied.” Here is a quick overview of some of the slides that are not entirely self-explanatory:

The Administrator Telephone Game

By Ross Cooper 1 Comment

As a classroom teacher, it can sometimes feel as if district administrators belong to an exclusive club in which they are secretly made aware of all the organization’s inner workings while everyone else is left in the dark. Sometimes this exclusive club might meet for closed-door professional development sessions, and the specific details of what they learn usually turn out to be a bit fuzzy for those not present. Yes, attendees are supposed to pass along the information to their teachers, the ones who interact with students on a daily basis. However, sometimes the facts get awfully distorted as they make their way through multiple channels, eventually reaching the intended audience (if the audience is reached at all).

To help in avoiding this conundrum, session facilitators should embed into administrator professional development explicit procedures for the learning to reach teachers and ultimately affect students in the most positive ways possible. Here are five options that leaders can consider when paving this smooth path along which information can travel:

Common Core Approved Cafeteria Milk

By Ross Cooper 3 Comments

With the Common Core State Standards staring everyone in the face, many districts are left scrambling to either (1) purchase “Common Core certified” materials or (2) adapt their old materials for the Common Core. In general, I prefer the latter. Simply purchasing a new series could most likely lead to teachers “doing the same thing” but with new materials, treating the series as if it is the curriculum when it is just a tool or resource. Furthermore, it is obvious that publishers have rushed their products to market in an effort to cash in on the new standards. (I’m surprised that our cafeteria milk has yet to be Common Core approved.)

When rolling out Common Core professional development in a subject such as Language Arts, it could be advantageous to focus on the current series, as this is where most teachers are comfortable. Then, discuss how to reinvent the series in order to meet the needs of the Common Core and higher-order thinking.

At a recent building-based professional development session, we took the following steps:

Edcamp Willow Lane

By Ross Cooper 1 Comment

Since arriving home from Edcamp New Jersey, I have been contemplating the ways in which its structure could be used as part of the professional development model at Willow Lane Elementary School. Soon after the Edcamp, I met with my building principal and Instructional Support Teacher (IST) in order to discuss the possibilities.

[Read more…] about Edcamp Willow Lane

Math Common Core Presentation

By Ross Cooper Leave a Comment

For about the past three years I have served as one of the fourth grade representatives on my school district’s Math Curriculum Committee. The committee initially assembled in order to assist in the selection and implementation of a new math series that would be used across the district. However, we had a curveball thrown our way when Pennsylvania adopted the Common Core State Standards. It was at this point in time that the committee turned its attention to this drastic change, and the way in which we would utilize professional development to familiarize all teachers with these new standards and practices.

As part of the professional development process, I recently presented on Common Core Mathematics to all of the fourth grade teachers in my district. The presentation lasted for approximately 2.5 hours, and it took place on my district’s fall in service day. The majority of the content focused on how inquiry-based mathematics could be taught, and not so much the new fourth grade documents (pacing guide, curriculum, etc.) that will be rolled out within the next year or so. Presenting all of the information in one session would have been overwhelming for all parties involved. Also, in order to truly emphasize the pedagogical shift that must take place, I strongly felt that it was best to first focus on how to teach before reviewing what to teach.

Here is a brief outline of what took place over the 2.5 hours:

Faculty Meeting and The Marshmallow Challenge

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I was originally introduced to The Marshmallow Challenge when I was in Scottsdale, Arizona for the Apple Distinguished Educator 2011 Summer Institute. My team emerged the victors, not because of me, but due to a certain physics teacher who also happened to be a former graduate student of Harvard University. Since this time, I have performed the Marshmallow Challenge with all of my fourth grade classes, both at the beginning of the school year and again at the end of the year.

Last week, my principal asked me to conduct the Marshmallow Challenge with the entire staff at a faculty meeting. First, the teachers were divided into groups of six, according to where they were sitting. Each group was given a yard of masking tape and a paper bag that contained: 20 sticks of spaghetti, 1 yard of string, 1 marshmallow, and 1 pair of scissors. Then, with their materials, the groups were given 18 minutes in order to build the tallest freestanding structure possible, and the marshmallow needed to be at the top. Some more specific rules included:

Project-Based Learning Professional Development

By Ross Cooper Leave a Comment

A handful of years ago, my school district began a project based learning (PBL) initiative and has since continued these efforts in the form of an initiative on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. As a result of the district placing their stamp of approval on these approaches to teaching and learning, I have witnessed a noticeable increase in the number of teachers who are promoting classroom projects, inquiry-based learning, and collaborative education.

This year, my school’s professional development committee decided to make PBL one of the main focuses of teacher learning, and I could not be happier. This is an initiative that I am helping to lead, along with one of the fifth grade teachers in my school. My colleague and I are teaching three sessions on PBL (two of which have already taken place). All sessions are exactly the same (more or less), and each teacher is required to attend one of the three sessions.

Challenge Based Learning Presentation

By Ross Cooper Leave a Comment

My district starts off every school year with two days of staff professional development, which takes place at the building level. This year, my principal asked me to share with the other teachers what I had learned at this summer’s Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) Summer Institute in Arizona. My presentation took place during the second day of our professional development, and it lasted for about an hour.