Part II: Effective Professional Development Programs: The Training Regime

      In Part I of Effective Professional Development Programs, I described the organizational components—instructional systems, administrative commitment, organizational commitment—that must be in place to fully realize the goals, theories, and practices of a newly adopted instructional methodology.

      As stated in the prior blog, most districts focus professional development on the implementation of a training regime. Although this component of effective staff development program becomes the center of program implementation, the adopted training regime will fall short on two essential elements of an effective adult educational program:1) most training regimes violate the principles of adult learning; 2) most training regimes fail to fully implement the educational components of learning and practicing foreign theories, ideas, and practices.

      In Part III of this blog, I will describe the principles of adult learning. In this blog, I present the substantive differences between two training regimes that districts consider when implementing new teaching metrologies. Most districts will adopt an institutional training regime to implement mandated changes to curriculum and instruction. Institutional training regimes are designed for efficiency: cost-effective, fast, and certifiable. To achieve these institutional goals the regime consists primarily of selling, telling, and complying (see Table Below). Nowhere in these institutional training regimes is there time or expertise dedicated to assisting teachers with developing a deep understanding of foreign theories of learning or to practice those theories in the classroom.

      Teachers respond to institutional training regimes by either adopting surface features of the new pedagogy (those that are readily observable) or by ignoring the pedagogy all together (depending upon supervisory vigilance). In some cases, teachers will actively sabotage a newly adopted instructional regime that is opposed to a school’s prevailing instructional worldview. The end game to all institutional training regimes is a compliance mentality where administrators comply with the managerial mechanics of implementation and teachers comply with the managerial mechanics of documentation.

      Educative learning regimes on the other hand position teachers in a process designed to transform theories into classroom practice (see Table Below). That learning process provides teachers with the time, the expertise, and the support, to develop deep understandings of the theories and vocabularies of a new pedagogy and, most importantly, to work closely with trainers who provide continual feedback on transforming theoretical understandings into classroom practices. The end game to all educative learning regimes is a continuing learning process in which administrators and teachers commit to jointly make collective sense out of theories and practices of a new instructional regime.

INSTITUTIONAL TRAINING REGIME

COMPONENT	WHAT TEACHERS ARE ASKED TO DO
Goals	Implement mandated teaching methodologies.
Distribute	Allocate materials associated with newly adopted teaching methodology
Present	Explain and demonstrate theories and practices associated with a new teaching methodology.
Standardize	Adopt curricular materials and accountability instruments that align with a new teaching methodology.
Document	Employing various accountability instruments (e.g. observation protocols, testing instruments) document the implementation of new teaching practices.

EDUCATIVE LEARNING REGIME

COMPONENT	WHAT TEACHERS ARE ASKED TO DO
Goals/Purposes	Identify gaps between agreed upon goals and purposes and actual student performance.
Theories & Practices	Identify a model of teaching that would best close the gap between goals/purposes and actual student performance.
Model	Observe expert performance of agreed model of teaching.
Adapt	Under the supervision of a mentor/consultant, identify elements of a model of teaching that conform to a personal teaching depositions and styles.
Coach	Participate in ongoing conversations with mentor/consultant on gaps between the intentions of agreed upon model of teaching and actual performance of those methods in classrooms.
Practice	Under the supervision of a mentor/consultant, continue to employ feedback from coaching sessions to close gaps between the intentions of a agreed upon model of teaching and actual performance of those methods in classrooms.
Author	Construct pedagogical approaches and plans of action that agree with a school’s instructional framework, the social context of the school, and pre-existing experiences of teachers.
Standardize	Normalize a set of teaching methods that make sense to teachers, are working for teachers, and accurately reflect the application of a agreed-upon model of teaching.