Example Sequence of Teacher PD Workshop Sessions
I recently had a couple of discussions with schools here in Rwanda regarding how I might be able to support teacher professional learning (aka. professional development) in the coming school-year. I feel strongly that effective teacher professional learning needs to consider the context of the teachers, school, students, curriculum, etc. However, for the sake of discussion, I put together a rough example sequence of workshop sessions. These are based on my personal teaching experience, and my experience working and observing in schools. The below sequence reflects some of the topics and concepts that I believe are high impact for teacher professional growth and student learning. Again, though, this is just an example.
The Teacher’s Job is to Explain— To “Make Plain”
I have made the claim before that a teacher is essentially an “explainer.” I’ve sometimes felt some resistance from others to that claim, and I think I know why. When I state that a teacher is an “explainer,” for some it conjurers up an image of a dry, boring lecture such as the case of the economics teacher (played by Ben Stein) in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (“anyone, anyone…”). This is not my idea of an “explainer,” so let me try to “explain” my claim below.