Teachers must take responsibility for their own learning
October 14 2009 by 
Hayes Mizell
A prominent insurance company currently has a national campaign called The Responsibility Project. Professional development could take a lesson from this campaign, as there seems to be no consensus about who is responsible for K-12 professional learning. Is it legislatures, state departments of education, local school boards, superintendents, central office administrators, schools, unions, or individual educators? Or is the responsibility shared among several of these entities and, if it is, how and towards what end?
In most cases, the people responsible for professional development are those who seize the initiative. This is often superintendents and their staffs. They want to improve teaching and learning as quickly as possible, and that means strengthening the instruction of large numbers of educators. It is not unusual for central office administrators to visit a school, conduct a walk through to identify what they perceive as instructional weaknesses, and subsequently prescribe professional development they hope will remedy the problems. In other cases, a superintendent is convinced that a certain subject-specific professional development program, or a vendor's curriculum with a professional development component, will improve instruction. Student achievement may or may not increase, but usually there is no effort to assess professional development's effect on the outcome. No one knows whether the superintendent's initiative failed or succeeded, or its total cost.
Superintendents and their staffs should be responsible for ensuring professional development is effective. However, they are on dangerous ground when they unilaterally determine the professional development they believe all teachers need, and require them to participate in it. Such a broad-brush approach incorrectly assumes that teachers enter professional learning with similar needs, readiness to learn, knowledge, skills, experience levels, and talents. It ignores the unique classroom context in which each teacher functions. It assumes all teachers will learn equally well and will be equally effective in applying their professional learning to interactions with their students. These assumptions are false, as demonstrated by the frequent failure of professional development dictated by the central office.
Motivation is a key variable in professional development. Educators seldom take professional development seriously when they do not believe it will benefit them or their students. Merely providing or requiring professional development will not cause educators to raise their performance levels or increase their productivity. Superintendents who regard professional development as their personal tool to leverage instructional improvement risk alienating rather than engaging teachers. After all, it is teachers, and only teachers, who control whether they learn, whether and how effectively they apply their learning, and whether their students benefit. Until teachers take greater responsibility for the development and effective use of their own learning, they can be sure that others will decide for them what and when they should learn.
Hayes Mizell is NSDC's Distinguished Senior Fellow.
Posted in Hayes Mizell | 
Oct 14, 2009 at 1:20 PM
Sounds like a dilemma which quickly needs Profesisonal Learning Communities that function effectively and instructional coaches to assist in facilitating groups to get them going. How likely is all of that to happen quickly if superintendents or others are doing top down design???? This situation makes a case for a strong push for learning communities/teams to collaborate on what they need if they are to meet the needs of students. NSDC's new definition of profesional development and the research being conducted by Linda Darling Hammond's group provide great information about what professional development should be. Now the quesion is, do those who really understand what good PD is have the will to work with the laundry list of people in your first paragraph to change their thinking and actions?
Oct 16, 2009 at 11:36 AM
Two main points in this conversation stand out: 1. The need for differentiated professioanl development and 2. The need for a paradigm shift when it comes to professional development in the field of education. Perhaps the place to start when addressing point 2 is with the language and thought behind what these groups already understand (i.e., point 1). We already share a paradigm of differentiated instruction when it comes to our students; now it's time to treat our teachers with the same respect when it comes to their learning. "Professional" doesn't mean "from another planet." Teachers are human, after all, so why wouldn't their differences impact how they learn and what they need to know at least as much as differences among students do? The idea that you can just dump information on teachers without worrying about these factors and they will rise to the occasion because they are the "learning pros" is short-sighted if not downright insulting.
Oct 16, 2009 at 5:56 PM
What prevents teachers from differentiating instruction? Check out the real reasons at http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/10-reasons-why-teachers-resist-differentiated-instruction/
Oct 24, 2009 at 10:06 AM
The last sentence of this post is especially interesting to me. "Until teachers take greater responsibility for the development and effective use of their own learning, they can be sure that others will decide for them what and when they should learn." Just as teachers need to actively seek input from their students and adjust their instruction to fit their needs, administrators need to do the same to make that professional development as effective as possible. I believe a lot of teachers see the professional development that is provided to them as having little to do with their instruction.
I also think Chris Hausammann makes a really important observation. Good instruction is good instruction wether you're providing it to professional staff or school children. How many of us have gone through training on differentiated instruction without any differentiation in the training? Professional development needs to reflect the best practices of instruction when it is being delivered.
Oct 26, 2009 at 5:15 AM
Succinctly put, Kris: Yes, "good instruction is good instruction..." The underlying issue here is that we need to treat learning for teachers with at least as much respect as we do for our students. "Do as I say, not as I do" works momentarily, only.
Nov 14, 2009 at 12:29 PM
I am a proponent for much of what has already been stated. I attend many professional development courses, and they have helped me to improve my own knowledge, and teaching. That is one of my responsibilities to become the best teacher I can be. However, just as a child/student has their wired learning modalities, from their early years, is the same way they learn as an adult. That would include teachers, administrators, superintendents, etc. Change for student improvement is first recognized in desperate need when a district is at the bottom of a downslide in scores. Then one day, the focus for immediate teacher improvement is expected. Remembering that it took a long time to descend, is the same view point for ascension; it will take as along or even longer to climb and maintain scores at a constant. Teacher's learning styles don't change from when they were young, but their own experiences and opportunities along with higher level learning via professional development, etc.is a definite advantage to student learning. On the other hand, the creativity has been taken out of the classroom teaching and learning, therefore, talented students are stiffled and possible new viewpoints are no longer integrated into lessons, or the curriculum. Therefore, student attitudes and desires are so important for a well rounded learning environment. We can only get as close to 100% learning when all factors are in place. Family committment to their children, taking an interest in their papers, not just throwing them away, but sitting down with them on a daily basis with a helping hand. Teachers will be apt to change their own attitudes when all other intregal components are in working progress to benefit the whole child. Demands for improvement should be placed at all levels. Why is there not a mandate, posed by government incentives,for drop-outs, to return to school. Parents also can save their child from developing a negative school attitude, replaced by a positive attitude just as a teacher looks to save one student from taking a negative turn. We could open a lot of jobs that create and develop an educational homelife for a lifetime. What a wonderful world. Less money would be spent on student formal suspensions, yet monies would be allocated fairly across the board, teacher payscales, extra district funding, etc. There would be no end to success.
Nov 28, 2010 at 1:24 PM
How likely is all of that to happen quickly if superintendents or others are doing top down design?
Dec 15, 2010 at 7:24 PM
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