Making Professional Development Better

In Bad PD is Sometimes Your Own Fault from  Ideas and Thoughts, shareski@gmail.com (Dean Shareski) asks,

“What examples do you have of being able to turn a bad or perhaps seemingly irrelevant PD session and finding value for yourself?”

I believe that some professional development sessions are better than others. Not all professional development needs to be a waste of time, even if it is boring. I can always learn something new, no matter what.

Before the session, I remind myself that I can’t learn everything about a topic in the time allotted. I need to list things down during the session that I would like to explore further.

During the session, if the presentation isn’t meeting my needs, write down questions that can steer it to my needs. How can this information be used with my students? How can it help me in the classroom? By making it more personal, it can help me have a different perspective. If I can’t figure out the answers to this question, try asking the presenter to help answer the questions.

After the session, think about how I actively use the information to make my teaching better.

If I go into the session thinking it is a waste of my time, it will feel like it no matter what the presenter says or does. The same goes for my own lesson and students. When I teach, I need to figure out a way to show the learning is relevant to my students.

I would like to teach my students to ask the questions they need to ask in order to make their learning more relevant. They need to learn to ask these questions of the teacher if necessary without it sounding disrespectful.

How do you turn a boring PD session into something meaningful to you? Please share.