Practice What You Preach: Personalizing Professional Learning for Continuous Improvement

by Danielle Bosanec, Chief Academic Officer, Pewaukee School District

“Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or in the same way.” This quote by George Evans emphasizes the incredibly important work of teaching and learning. Teaching and learning, however, does not only apply to students in today’s education systems. While personalized learning has been a popular topic in classrooms for a number of years, it is only recently that many school districts have begun to apply similar personalized learning practices to the adult learners in their organization. This article provides research background on adult learning and shares insights learned by the Pewaukee School District in our journey toward personalized learning for staff.

Malcolm Knowles, the most referenced researcher on adult learners, coined the art and science of teaching adults as andragogy in 1968. There are several key principles to be considered when designing adult learning. Below is a summary of andragogy principles and an interpretation of the implications for designing professional development (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2015).

1. Need to Know: Adults need to know the reason for learning.

Implication: It is critical to be transparent with the reason why staff is being asked to engage in professional development and how their new learning will impact student outcomes.

2. Experience: Adults draw upon their experiences to aid their learning.

Implication: The background of all staff must be considered when developing learning opportunities. This likely means that learning opportunities need to be scaffolded to the different levels of staff understanding of a topic.

3. Self Concept: Adults prefer instruction that allows for self-direction in their learning.

Implication: The ability to incorporate choice in the learning process can improve engagement and satisfaction. Student learning has a greater chance of being positively impacted if training is tailored to the specific needs of staff.

4. Readiness: The learning readiness of adults is closely related to their beliefs about the role they hold in the organization.

Implication: Professional development is an opportunity to build culture in an organization. Allowing staff to have “choice and voice” affirms their status as respected professionals who understand the learning needs of the students they serve.

5. Orientation: As a person learns new knowledge, he or she wants to apply it immediately in problem solving.

Implication: Spending time determining how to apply new learning is often as valuable as the time engaged in new learning. Professional development models should include opportunities for staff to collaborate and apply new methods in their own setting.

6. Motivation: As a person matures, he or she receives their motivation to learn from internal factors.

Implication: For too long professional development has earned the reputation of something that is done to teachers, not with them or for them. Involving staff in the development of new learning experiences and leaning on them to help deliver the model can fuel the internal motivation teachers innately possess to do their best for kids.

With these concepts in mind, and responding to feedback from our faculty, in 2016 the Pewaukee School District designed and implemented professional development with the following goals:

Enhance meaning and engagement for our faculty in relation to professional learning.
Empower faculty to choose topics of focus to grow practice in support of continuously improving student learning.
Implement a process that increased the level of choice for faculty and addressed district and building level needs for training and curriculum development.

The core elements of the personalized professional development model designed by the Pewaukee School District was based on the concept of “freedom within fences”. Our district mission of “Opening The Door To Each Child’s Future”, was the fence upon which our professional development was based (Figure 1). The elements required for all staff creating the “fence” components include:

Staff requirement to meet a minimum hour or product creation.
Staff creation of Professional Learning Plans, collaboratively designed with administration, to identify and focus on one of the Pewaukee School District Personalized Learning Guidelines (Figure 2).

“Freedom” components within the model include:

Teacher choice of which Personalized Learning Guideline is to be their area of focus.
Various staff development activities developed to correlate to each of the Personalized Learning Guidelines so staff could tailor their learning to sessions of relevance.
Teacher choice of what sessions to attend and when they would complete requirements over the course of the year.
Teachers & leaders develop the agenda & present relevant sessions for staff.

Over the course of five professional development days throughout the school year, staff engages in curriculum development, building initiatives, wellness activities, and various professional development aligned to the Personalized Learning Guidelines. The agenda for each day is developed a few weeks in advance and staff sign up for sessions of interest. Session leaders know which staff will be attending and tailor learning to those staff members. Through an internal website, staff are able to view the agenda, sign up for activities, track completed hours, and retrieve archived materials from sessions they did or did not attend.

Additionally, each staff member is required to complete 16 hours of professional development outside of their scheduled contract. Staff give input on the types of professional learning experiences they want to engage in after hours and during the summer. Opportunities have included bringing in trainings from organizations that align with district goals, book studies, Twitter chats, home-grown learning opportunities, and much more. Over the course of the two years since implementation the total number of hours contractually required to complete by all staff was just over 6,200 hours. The actual amount of time staff engaged in professional learning was over 10,800. Staff chose to engage in additional learning without additional compensation because they viewed the learning opportunities as relevant, important, and of high quality.

Survey results of personalizing professional development has also been supportive of the model. Staff engagement surveys showed that satisfaction of professional development shifted from 72.2% satisfaction to 96.2% in just one year. Both new staff and veteran staff regularly provide positive feedback on the system as well. These positive results demonstrate that the challenges of developing a model like this, including the logistical details and allocating resources to support the model, is well worth the effort.

As leaders it is critical to practice what we preach. If we want our teachers to meet the needs of each child in our system, it is essential we do the same for the needs of each of our staff members. The model the Pewaukee School District has created continues to evolve to meet the needs of our staff. Our experience is just one example of how personalizing professional learning can improve culture, staff engagement, and staff commitment to personalizing the learning for our students. Our experience demonstrates that applying the principles of adult learning can yield positive results in a public school system.

For more information, please contact Danielle Bosanec directly at [email protected]

The Pewaukee School District model of personalized professional learning will be presented at the SLATE Conference on December 4, 2018.

References:

Knowles, M. S., F., H. I., & Swanson, R. A. (2015). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Sinek, S. (2011). Start with why how great leaders inspire everyone to take action.