Is teacher training enough for professional development?

I recently gave a three-hour workshop to a group of teachers. The workshop included games and activities that teachers could incorporate into their lessons to make them more communicative and engaging. One of the workshop activities, Show & Tell, was already used regularly by the teachers in their classrooms to encourage speaking. The workshop went smoothly, and the teachers were highly engaged in the activities. They reported positive feedback at the end of the workshop. At the end, the teachers were assigned a task that required each  to do one of the activities in his/her class, to record it and send me the recording along with a one-page reflection on what went well in the activity and what the teacher would do differently the next time the activity would be given. Let me note that the workshop notes and recordings were made available for the teachers on the school website for their reference.

The majority of the teachers emailed me the recordings of their activities and their reflection reports. I watched the recordings and provided feedback to each teacher. From the feedback I gave, I can elicit the following points:

-         Most teachers did the activity that they had already been doing in their classrooms, Show & Tell. Only one teacher chose a different activity.

-         Show and Tell was given in the exact same way I had observed it in classes; a student presents an object to the class; he might ask a question or more to his classmates at the end. It did not take the form presented in the workshop which I thought gave the well-known activity a whole new dimension of interactivity

-         The other activity that one teacher chose to do with the class, did not abide by the rules of the game I presented in the workshop; the length of the activity, the questions to ask students, encouraging student questions…

-         A few teachers did their own activities that only slightly resembled  the workshop activities I had given.

-         One teacher abided by the protocol I presented in the workshop for the Show and Tell activity but still lacking some major elements I had stressed.

Based on the above observations, I deduce that one-shot training sessions are not enough to ensure change in teachers’ classroom performance in a specific aspect. Thus, I propose that training be treated much like teaching in a regular class where the trainees are learners just as students are learners. This implies that they need not only presentation of the material in a classroom setting and providing the content as notes or in a textbook, as I did in my above-described training session. Much more is needed. Ample practice for new learning is necessary and giving the trainees the chance to apply their learning and receive feedback which should feed into further practice. Much scaffolding is necessary after the training is over. For these reasons, I conduct my training in the following manner:

-         Presentation of the new material (supposedly new to most trainees) in an engaging modality employing appropriate methods of teaching and a variety of interaction modes

-         Assigning each group of trainees to a coach who volunteers willingly to carry out the coaching tasks

-         Provide the coaches and the coaches (trainees earlier) with a list of the training objectives that they are supposed to acquire

-         Meet with the coaches periodically and decide on an action plan so that the coachees get to practice their new learning within their coaching groups and receive feedback from each other and the coach. Here the coach takes the role of the facilitator to plan for meetings and group discussions

-         Assign a due date for the coachees to complete a task that reflects their learning. They are to present the task within their groups first, receive feedback from group members and modify as necessary to improve the final product

-         Submit the final product to the trainer to evaluate. There is still room for feedback and improvement based on the trainer’s feedback.

-         End with a final reflection session where teachers (coaches and coachees) discuss the process and their new learnings and how it would impact their students’ learning.

Although these multiple steps to training are time-consuming, they allow teachers to practice what they learn in small groups where they feel safe to make mistakes and learn from other group members. By providing feedback to colleagues, they are practicing being critical of classroom practices. The teachers who are given coaching tasks are also practicing leadership and are being accountable for the success of a whole group of teachers. Having to coach motivates the coaches to be responsible for their own learning because they know that their group members will refer to them when problems arise.  

Now, that teachers have practiced their new learning and that has been witnessed by the teacher, colleagues, coaches and trainer, it is time to celebrate the success. Cake and coffee are great, followed by distributing certificates of completion.