I’m out of the pool and thinking about Professional Development that is “sticky”. Fred Ende talks about “timing” in his awesome book titled, “Professional Development That Sticks”. I think best just after exercising and my swim coach (who also happens to be my son) had us do 3,000 yards this morning.
In Ende’s book he uses the TAR (Think, Act, Review) method to help keep professional development learning “sticky” or accessible to the participants long after the session is complete. I was thinking how cool it would be to have kids take part in this process. During the Act and Review phase students could be used as strategy recipients. Data could be collected during the workshop to analyze the effectiveness of implemented strategies.
If scaffolding techniques are being introduced to assist the high leverage practice of writing to learn, then students of varying writing levels could be used to assess their effectiveness. If the goal of scaffolding is to move learners from support to independence, then the support structures must be accessible and user friendly. When writing an essay, steps to complete the process could be provided and graphic aids within each step could be accessible. Leaders facilitating the PDL (Professional Development Learning) could model the scaffolding strategies on the adult learners and they in turn could model these techniques to real students who volunteered to help teachers learn.
During the review phase, qualitative and quantitative data could be shared. Did students access the scaffolds in place when they got stuck? How effective were the organizers? Learners at similar writing levels could be given the same writing task without the workshop scaffold support and scores could be analyzed .
This type of PDL could save valuable time and give educators answers before even walking into the classroom. Finally, it could be a valuable tool to receive student feedback after the PDL session. I’ve found students are happily willing to expose my blind spots and often offer insightful suggestions that help make learning a more enjoyable and “sticky” experience.
