My Last GREAT Professional Development Experience

When I think of great professional development I go back three years to my experience with the Nurturing Teacher Leadership program through the Chicago Teachers Union when I was working on National Board Certification. This was not a one or two session program but 600 hours of PD and reflection of my teaching practice over a nine month period. It was set up as one large cohort of 75 with several smaller ones with 4 or 5 members. We received whole group presentations about various teaching philosophies and techniques that utilized different presentation formats including multimedia, lecture, and breakout activity-based. The most valuable aspect was being able to go back into the smaller cohort groups and discuss and reflect on whether or how the different techniques and strategies could improve our teaching practice. We also had time to implement some strategies and techniques and come back to share how they did or did not work. Being required to reflect on one's teaching practice is the best way to improve it. Thus making the professional development relevant, rigorous and related to me as a teacher, which is what PD is supposed to be about. I realize that this was a unique opportunity, (believe me it was a difficult process and it took my reflection on it to make me truly appreciate it) and not everyone can commit the time to this type of professional development. Still the components that made it so "great" to me were the TIME to take in and dissect the information, reflecting on it, discussing it, and determining how it could fit into my practice. Then being able to implement strategies, techniques and lessons - videotaping some and sharing out - and seeing how they work in real life, having the time to share and receive critique as well. The key is TIME, something that there is rarely enough of.