Grand Rapids Public Schools implemented a new concept today at its district-wide professional development.  Last month a survey came around to all employees having them choose a session they would like to attend for professional growth off a list of around 20 different topics.  The list was narrowed down to around eight topics and teachers chose their 1st and 2nd choice via surveymonkey online.  Our school started implementing this concept of “sessions” for teachers last year, and it was a huge hit!  It was exciting to see the district offer this.  Too often teachers feel that professional development days are irrelevant to them and often are heard saying they were a waste of time because it was not a topic they could connect with.  This PD, teachers could decide what area they needed growth in and could attend that session for the day.  The sessions were held in several locations throughout the district and included such topics as technology, classroom management, close and critical reading, questioning in the classroom, and ACT.  I was invited to present at the classroom management session held in the library at Burton School (my first time here and it was beautiful!) where we had around 65 teachers attend. I had some excellent feedback and hope they took away some relevant information that they can implement in their classroom right away!

I think this is a great concept and mimics that of conferences where participants can plan out their day choosing sessions to attend based on what they need to learn about or what is interesting to them.  The other great thing was that GRPS had all sessions presented by staff.  Too often we bring in and pay for outside “experts” in an area when we have highly qualified and knowledgeable staff that can deliver effective professional development right here.  I believe there is a lot more “buy in” from staff as well when they hear from colleagues and see what is working for them.

I know that we plan to continue to use this concept in our building at Ottawa as our Instructional Leadership Team plans PD for staff, and after hearing of the positive feedback from today’s PD, I believe we will be using this format as a district again as well.

An additional noteworthy component of today’s PD was a commitment by teachers to try strategies.  All teachers wrote a plan of action to implement 3 strategies that they learned about today and turned in a copy.  I think this is important as too often we hear and learn some great ideas and do not formulate a plan of action.  Accountability needs to be a factor as well as support, follow through, and feedback.  This is also something that we have been doing more regularly in our school PD and have been finding success.