Essential Elements of Professional Development Workshops for Teachers

1. Essential Elements of Professional Development Workshops for Teachers

2. ONE: I just returned from the best inservice! The presenters were hilarious. We laughed, we ate great food, we received an enormous notebook of handouts and a huge plastic box of manipulatives as well as a $500 stipend and three graduate credits for recertification. TWO: Have you ever extracted DNA? It was so cool! We analyzed our own DNA from hair and skin samples, we looked at confidential forensic DNA samples from the police department, we used the highest tech equipment I’ve ever seen. It was fascinating! CASE STUDIES

3. Grab Some Paper … • What do YOU hate most about poorly designed teacher workshops or school inservice programs? [Do this individually, we’ll share in a moment] • As a group, create a poster listing the top five (5) worst avoidable mishaps for a teacher professional development workshop or inservice [With all due apologies to David Letterman’s TOP TEN List]

4. Elements to a Great Workshop • An informed understanding of what the participants believe their needs are • Clear, understandable, attainable, and shared goals explicitly stated • Logistics are transparent to participants and consider comforts as well as • Participants are engaged in activities based on best teaching practices for students • Workshop evaluation approaches inform decision making by presenters • Presenters are easily accessible to provide further information and resources • Experiences are designed specifically to augment that special craft knowledge master teachers possess – pedagogical content knowledge

5. Pedagogical Content Knowledge "... that special amalgam of content and pedagogy that is uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of professional understanding." (Shulman, 1987)

6. Pedagogical Content Knowledge • Knowledge of content including structure, philosophy, and emphases of the discipline • Awareness of multiple representations and analogies that make it comprehensible • Appreciation of common misconceptions and the aspects of what makes specific concepts easy or difficult • Knowledge of available curriculum resources and sequential structure • Understanding of a multiplicity of students and school environments • Facility in using multiple assessment approaches • Skills at a range of engaging instructional strategies specific to the discipline • Can clearly explain rationale for classroom decisions

7. What are the questions? • See excellent handout on planning workshops in your 2001 TOPS Binder from Mary Kadooka

8. What are the questions? • Goals? How do you want the participants to be different? • Evidence? What evidence would you accept that the goals have been met? • THEN – what, where, when, how long, which activities, what state standards, how many people, how to advertise …

9. Why Do You Care About Evaluation? • An evaluation plan is required by most funding agencies • Working on a detailed evaluation plan will often find weaknesses in your plan that you can fix BEFORE it is too late • A thoughtful evaluation plan can actually make useful mid-course improvements during your project • A well structured evaluation makes your final report easy to complete

10. Components of a Project Evaluation • Process or Implementation Evaluation • Did the project “do” what was proposed? • Formative Evaluation • What mid-course changes will improve the project? • Summative Evaluation • To what extent did the project meet its goals? • Evaluation Matrix • Goals, Activities, Data Sources, and Performance Indicators of Success

11. The HOLY GRAIL: The Evaluation Matrix

12. EXAMPLES OF Cognitive, Affective, & Product Goals • COGNITIVE GOAL: To increase participants knowledge of science. • AFFECTIVE GOAL: To increase participants attitudes, values, and interest in science. • PRODUCT GOAL: To widely disseminate a classroom-tested series of science instructional materials.

13. The HOLY GRAIL: The Evaluation Matrix

14. Measuring Student Attitudes, Values, & Interests Likert Scale Survey I really enjoy videos we watch in astronomy class SA A N D SD I often watch astronomy documentaries on TV SA A N D SD Only intrinsically smart people can learn astronomy SA A N D SD I think the videos we watch are important to my SA A N D SD learning astronomy Supplied Response Do the astronomy videos shown in class help you learn astronomy? Anecdotal Records * “After watching the video, I’ve decided to change my major to astronomy!” Individual Interviews (conducted by someone other than the PD with clear rules about how the results will be used and who sees them) Focus Groups (8 to 12 students being clear about who will hear about what happened & when) Close the loop with your participants if you want to continue to get meaningful results!

15. Two Golden Rules • PEOPLE LEARN THE MOST ABOUT YOUR PROJECT FROM ANECDOTES – • but, you have to have quantitative data before you can tell your qualitative anecdotes. • YOU CAN’T DO FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT AT THE SAME TIME – • data you collect to make improvements is never the same as data you take to show your funding agency how wonderful your project is.

16. Workshop Evaluation Forms • Clearly state what the evaluations are use for and who sees them (this influences how honest people are) • Combination of quantitative and qualitative works best [circle 1 2 3 4 5 & comments] • Daily forms listing session by session provides mountains of information • THREE QUESTIONS: • What worked well today? • What aspects need improvement? • What else do the presenters need to know before they present again? Please provide specific examples