In the hallways of your school have you ever heard a conversation like this?:

Teacher 1: Augh, we have the meeting with X about Y this afternoon.

Teacher 2: Nooo. That’s today? Every year it’s the same thing. Don’t they realize we have heard this information a bajillion times? It is such a waste of time.

One of my responsibilities as Director of Professional Development is to look at all the meetings, trainings, conferences, etc. that the teachers attend in a year and make sure that they are addressing the needs of the school and the needs of the teachers in a way that makes sense. I also seek teacher feedback after each of these events and try and work with those leading them to continuously make them better.  So, when I am aware that there is a general consensus that something is a complete waste of time, I enter into damage control mode, which usually means talking with the leader of whatever meeting or training that is currently under attack. That conversation usually goes a bit like this:

Me: Hi X, can we talk about the meeting that you are leading on Y?

X: Sure, what’s up?

Me: I would like to review the objective of the meeting and make sure it makes sense for all of our teachers. I think there is information that is repeated each year that perhaps is only applicable to new teachers as opposed to ALL teachers. I want to make sure teachers know that we value their time and are not inviting them to meetings to share something they already know.

X: Kate, I hear you but the problem is these teachers say they know the information but their actions do not tell the same story. [Followed by a list of data and complaints supporting these claims]

Sound familiar?  I know I have been on both sides of this scenario. I have been the teacher who ranges from tired or disinterested to insanely peeved that my time is being wasted with a meeting or training that has no value to me.  I have also been the presenter frustrated by the lack of professionalism of the teachers in attendance (and more so by those that fail to show up).

It is easy to point the finger at the teachers. They should care about this, about their learning. They should be self-motivated. But as educators we should know better. Would this same rationale be accepted from a teacher talking about his students? While we definitely hear teachers blame students (i.e. “they’re lazy”, “they just don’t care”, etc.,) we know that the solution is to change our actions and find ways to hook our audience, our learners. The same is true for school leaders and teachers.

Enter adult learning theory.

There is a ton of research on adult learning, and more and more research on how the brain works, what motivates us and how we best remember information.  Here I share a few of the key beliefs and accompanying strategies that support effective adult learning (and in many case effective student learning as well!):

Adults are independent and self-directed.

Teachers know that they must follow school policies outlined in their contracts but they do so begrudgingly at times, because as adults we believe we know what is best and we want to be in control of how we spend our time and energy. Therefore, in effective professional development teachers must feel that their needs have been considered in the development of any meeting or training and sense that they are respected as adults and that their opinions and feedback matter. This requires that the following conditions be met:

• The learning environment must be physically comfortable. Sometimes there are limited options for space that can hold a large group of teachers, but if there is too much noise due the marching band’s practice, or the room is too hot or too cold, or the seats are terribly hard or insufficient resulting in some teachers standing or siting on the floor, you have lost your audience before you even begin.
• An environment of mutual respect and trust must be built through collaboration between the facilitator and the other participants. This is something that a school leader and other faculty must work on throughout the year with their teachers. If you have developed good relationships with your teachers, usually they will give you the benefit of the doubt and attend your meeting with an open mind.  You must also read your audience and make sure you are responding to their body language. Even better – invite some teachers to help with the presentation, meeting or training. You might be surprised by the ideas they bring to the table and when roles are reversed people tend to be more forgiving.
• Feedback from participants on the learning experience should be collected. ALWAYS. Whether you are leading an ongoing training, there is a yearly presentation that you are responsible for leading (often required by law – such as teacher induction) or you have a one-time only gig, it is critical that teachers see that their feedback has been valued. Teacher feedback may even merit a direct response. This year in induction, teachers were able to give feedback after every session to comment on the specifics of that session and at the end of every day to comment on general logistics and whatnot of the induction. My team and I would look at the feedback in the afternoon, identify what we could change immediately, what we would change for next year and what comments possibly were a reflection of a misunderstanding or miscommunication. At the beginning of the following day, either in person in front of the whole school or via email, this information would be shared, thanking teachers for their feedback, highlighting immediate and future changes and offering our rationale for decisions made that would not be changed, at least for the moment. Teachers greatly appreciated this and the quality of feedback from teachers improved, allowing us to continue to improve the induction.

Adults come to the table with prior knowledge and beliefs.

Adults have a reservoir of experience that influences their learning. Too often we treat all teachers the same and this can be frustrating. New teachers can feel overwhelmed because they sense that other teachers are light years ahead.  Veteran teachers can feel annoyed that they are hearing the same information for the eighth year in a row.  In order to get and maintain the attention of all your teachers, it is important to acknowledge what each person can offer to the conversation and what each one needs. Some ways to do this are to:

• Survey the group. At the beginning of professional development, give teachers a chance to share what they already know about the topic at hand.  This is also a great opportunity for teachers to share what they do not know, what they wonder, and what additional questions they have.  This not only helps to guide you, the leader of the professional development, but also helps teachers to realize why the topic is important and maybe to recognize some things that they, too, do no have completely clear.
• Construct new knowledge upon these experiences. Be prepared to adjust your training based on what the participants have shared. This can mean skipping over information that they already know, or inviting teachers to share with the group when you get to a topic that they know a lot about, or answering questions that the teachers have that maybe you had not originally considered.
• Challenge assumptions. When teachers share their ideas at the beginning of the session, you then have information on what they do not know, as well as the misconceptions they have.  During the training, you can delicately help these teachers to connect to new concepts, theories and experiences through discussion (cooperative and collaborative work), simulations, case studies and problem-based learning that supports this change of thinking or understanding.

Adults learn when they perceive a need.

Adults are problem-centered as opposed to content-centered. A teacher juggles a lot in his or her day to day. Because of this, teachers want to be efficient with their use of time and focus on priorities. When they recognize that there is a need that applies to them and will help them in their work, they are more apt to listen up. Thus teachers must know the reason why they are learning something and they must connect with it.  Some strategies for aiding in this are to:

• Explicitly communicate or demonstrate the immediate need or application of the content being presented.  Just as we do in the classroom with students, any good presentation should clearly state the objective and why this objective is important. Joellen Killion (2009) also emphasizes that importance of connecting professional learning to student learning, so if the objective can directly relate to the classroom, even better.
• Link content to the needs and interests of participants. Again, knowing your teachers is going to be key. Whether this information be based on individual conversations or data gathered by looking at individual professional goals for the year, explicitly making connections between your presentation and what you know teachers care about will hook them. They will say, “Oh, she’s talking to me”.
• Create readiness to learn through instruction techniques that are experiential or real-world. First, this will require that teachers connect to the training because if they are doing the work, it is nearly impossible to disconnect from the content.  Additionally, this will generate further awareness of the need to learn the content.
• Push participants to find their own answers. Presenting questions related to the objective of your presentation or the reason for your training, can force teachers to start thinking about the problem from their perspective, gain buy-in and result in collaboration around the topic that matters to you, the presenter.
• Provide opportunities for reflection and feedback. Formative assessment is essential with our students, so why wouldn’t it be the same with our teachers? Frequently checking for understanding during a training helps teachers to process the information, make meaning, and stay connected, helps you gauge your effectiveness, and generates more discussion, especially about the more complex ideas or skills.

Adults learn when they feel good.

Research shows that motivation is a key factor in learning, as much with adults as with children. To generate motivation, it is necessary to:

• Create an inclusive environment. Allow for introductions, communicate cooperative intentions, assess learners’ expectations, needs, goals, previous experience, provide rationale, and acknowledge and welcome differences. Some of these things will become second nature if you have been developing a culture of professional learning in your school. But you are first getting started with a new group or at the beginning of the year, it is important to make teachers know you and know each other.  Again, the more personalized the learning, the more engaged the learner.
• Create a positive environment. Many trainings or meetings are at the end of the day. Even if you have an early-release schedule, teachers may be coming to your session tired, stressed, and distracted. Creating a positive environment can include getting people to laugh with a joke (know your strengths, don’t force a joke that you know you can’t deliver effectively), getting people to open up and share good news, celebrate successes and talking up the exciting learning that is going to take place in the training.
• Guarantee a win.  Teachers must have the opportunity to feel successful in their learning, to feel competent. As mentioned, formative assessment should be done frequently to assess and provide feedback so that participants can measure their learning and feel that they are making progress. It is important to stretch teachers’ thinking but to also give them a chance to answer questions correctly and then to acknowledge this learning and growth explicitly.

Adults remember when there is just the right amount of struggle.

For learning to “stick” it must be effortful. As modeled in the teacher conversation at the beginning of this post, teachers do not want to have their time wasted. They should not be receiving information or training about something they already know, but be constructing new knowledge and skills. Finding the right level of challenge is not easy but it is necessary. Here are some ways to find the balance:

• Employ effortful and repeated retrieval. The first time teachers are asked to retrieve new knowledge and skills from memory they may be at a loss. Many of us take notes or listen passively. When asked to cover our notes or repeat back information we realize that we do not actually know or understand what was said. Creating the habit of incorporating formative assessment that depends on retrieval of information from memory (without looking at slides or notes) will get teachers to listen in a new way. Additionally, if they are not able to answer all the questions, they will hear the answers of others and the repetition will help the information to the stay with them.
• Create opportunities for reflection.  This is similar to repeated retrieval in that it creates another chance for teachers to pause, go back and review what was already covered. This time allows them to ask questions of themselves to test their mastery.
• Ask teachers to elaborate.  Ask questions that require teachers to put learning into their own words and make connections between the new information and what they already know.  These connections to prior knowledge will help them to retain the new knowledge.
• Invite teachers to calibrate. As we can see with the example of repeated retrieval, sometimes as adults we think we are learning because we are listening and taking great notes, only to discover that we cannot explain much of what we heard.  By frequently assessing and then providing feedback, you ensure that teachers are, in fact, progressing and understanding the content being presented.

During my masters (in Education), I remember think that it was interesting that so many teachers of educators did not model good teaching. I was at the school of my choice and was committed to my learning, but there were definitely classes where my brain wandered where I had no idea what my notes said until I reviewed them later (and sometimes they did not trigger my memory).

I had the best of the intentions. I was in the classes that I wanted to be in. And yet, there were days that I arrived not 100%.  Some professors hooked me immediately, got my working, and got me learning – they got me to my 100%. Others allowed me to zone out and stay disconnected.

Even on their best days, teachers are still human. Those of us leading teacher learning must step up our game, model good (adult) teaching so that we get the most from our teachers in every learning opportunity. The teachers will thank us and the students will be positively affected as well.

 

RESOURCES:

Brown, P.C., Rodegidger, H.L., & McDaniel, M.A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Hirsh, S. & Killion, J. (2009). When educators learn, students Learn: eight principles of professional learning. Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 90, No. 07, March 2009, pp. 464-469.

Merriam, S.B. & Cierema, L.L. (2014). Adult learning: Linking theory and practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.