If my analysis and research skills are good, I would agree that there is a hole in the area that the professional learning event seemed to be aimed at filling, however, I wonder if the professional learning event only made the hole bigger for the following reasons:
- lack of transparency
- lack of clear goals
- lack of clear evidence to support the learning event
- lack of the right environment to fill the hole well.
When there's a hole that needs to be filled in curriculum programs, I suggest the following activities:
- inclusive establishment of goals and expectations: This is what we want to do and this is why we want to do it.
- clear, transparent, respectful analyses of efforts, expectations, and results towards reaching goal: These data/observation points demonstrate that we've achieved ____, and that we still have a way to go to achieve ________.
- invitation of the voices of all involved as to how to best fill the hole beginning with the questioning: What do you think we can do to make this better? Do we need to study on our own first, then discuss the matter? Can we all attend a similar learning event? Should we work together to rewrite and/or reteach the material and see if we can get better results.
- working together to establish a path towards betterment
When conjecture replaces truthful observations, analyses, and share, the paths we follow often don't result in the expectations we hope for. Rather than conjecture, I support authentic conversation, goal setting, creation of a collaborative learning path, and collaborative work to openly and honestly move towards betterment.
When we work together as teams with mostly equal footing, I believe we do better to teach children well.
