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Find a shorter version of my Making the Most Out of Professional Development blog at Teaching Channel.com “Professional development is a continuous, connected and unique journey of sharing, learning, creating, implementing, reflecting and revising, that is fueled by your passion, purpose and whys, and grounded in the core beliefs of uniqueness, confidence, and the ability to continuously use and share new learning effectively and meaningfully to authentically meet and impact the unique needs of learners and the workplace” ~ Cherry-Anne Gildharry. In education, our ultimate target group is our students. To meet their unique needs, educators must gain authentic and evolving skills to impact learning way beyond the face-to-face or virtual classroom. Therefore, professional development in education is the medium for gaining the knowledge and skills needed to develop our students into lifelong innovative and adaptive learners by providing them with enduring, rigorous, applicable, and real-world learning experiences so they can make a unique impact in our world. Whether you are a leader of students or educators, this blog will provide you with some insightful ideas for making professional development a continuous, connected, and unique journey that you get the most out of. Here are some thought provoking questions that might provide a purpose before or as you read this blog.
Introspection - Understanding yourself. Before “attending” professional development, it is important to spend extensive time engaging in introspection to dig deep and understand yourself. Find those soul-searching and honest facts about your values, beliefs, strengths, talents, goals, drive, purpose, mindset, whys, learning styles, confidence level, and your limitations and areas for growth. Use a way that works best for you and one that you will reference often to document your thoughts. Some ideas are creating a picture, poem, infographic, keeping a journal or even creating a website. Reflect on your thoughts about yourself as often as needed to become more self-aware. You may ask, why is this important for making the most of professional development? The answer is simple, you need to know who you are and stay true to your unique self before you can meaningfully use knowledge and skills gained. Along your professional journey you will have many challenges that may cause you to deviate from your true self and to get lost in social standards, the fads, the race, the one up competition, the one-size fits all expectations and others’ limitations. You may be afraid that if you do not do as everyone else does, you will not be assessed as a great collaborator. However, to authentically help young and adult learners reach their fullest potential and unfold their uniqueness, you must stay true and grounded to sharing the unique ideas and skills you know will generate excellence, despite all challenges. Understanding yourself is the foundation to making professional development meaningful, intentional, and ongoing. “Understanding yourself is a vital part of learning to be a proactive, creative, innovative workplace contributor. Without self-awareness, it's difficult to make the right decisions. You limit your ability to learn and grow” ~ Kristine Tucker. If you do not know yourself, you will always keep trying to be someone else. That internal struggle limits clarity in goal setting, knowledge attainment and authentic implementation. So, how will you ensure that you are always focusing on your unique identity and purpose as you gain and use knowledge, despite challenges you may face? Identify Goals and Choose Goal-Aligned Professional Development To make the best out of professional development, it is important to have personal and professional goals. Typically, you will read that the focus of professional development goals is placed on career advancement. While this is one aspect, the most important goal-oriented purpose is having knowledge-use goals that are focused on knowledge attainment, meaningful application, and continuous implementation. Knowledge-use goals provide direction and purpose, motivation, and profound meaning for attending professional development. During introspection, you identified your personal goals. Some personal professional development goals could be to find ways to represent, connect, implement, and share new or previously gained pedagogical strategies. Other goals for professional development are linked to school and district improvement plans, such as increasing literacy in math and using both qualitative and quantitative data meaningfully, and others that are aligned to your workplace and educators and students’ needs. Take time to determine these needs and make them into professional development goals. Prioritize your goals to make sure you are addressing the most urgent needs first, or simultaneously. While some professional development workshops in education are mandatory, for those that are not, it is important to choose and attend professional development sessions that align with your goals and meet yours, and very importantly educators and students’ needs. This choice must be solely yours; take time to look at your introspection notes and the goals you identified before choosing a session. Modern professional development structures provide varying sessions to differentiate learning, from which participants can choose based on their needs. Explore session descriptions thoroughly to make sure the ones you choose align with your goals and needs. If only a one-session workshop is available, it should also provide differentiated learning activities and structures to meet the varying adult learning styles, so choose and focus on engagement activities that align with your goals. Engage in Non-Conventional Professional Development When we think of professional development, we generally think of those conventional sessions, paid or unpaid, that have been organized and planned for us by our organization or other organizations and the ones we are expected or asked to attend. These are great, but never underestimate the profound impact of non-conventional professional development sessions that also keep us up-to-date in our profession, and profoundly impact our goals. These include selecting and reading newsletters and articles, engaging in research, being part of a professional learning community that shares and supports innovative ideas and beliefs, creating products, reflecting and revising them, and very importantly engaging in intellectual goal-oriented discussions. Engaging in intellectual conversations with people in your network or even a family member who shares the same passion is one of the best forms of professional development. I learned a lot from my wife, Melanie Gildharry about blended learning and adult learning principles by just engaging in intellectual and exhilarating pedagogical conversations. During those conversations, I came to realize that I am an auditory learner as well. I listened attentively and created a visual note in my mind until I could write down the main ideas that resonated with me. Being an inquiry-based and action-based learner, the note was not the end of my learning. I did additional research and created products that I continue to use and share. Intellectual conversations are one of the best forms of professional development. Since it was launched on November 30, 2022, ChatGPT has been populating social media and professional learning networks. It is “an artificial intelligence trained to assist with a variety of tasks; it is another way to have conversations and get information sourced from the internet that you listen to or read to heighten skills and enhance knowledge. One of the most important things about ChatGPT information is it goes one step further to personalize and structure information to meet your exact needs. While there are many pros and cons listed about this new rave, this is another incredible non- conventional professional development experience. Similar to the ways you use research and articles, you can use ChatGPT information to create unique products, products aligned to your unique skills, talents, purpose, target groups and more. Non-conventional professional development learning experiences are some of the most beneficial ways to learn and develop your abilities. Capturing Professional Development Ideas Now that you have identified and prioritized your goals, and selected your professional development session, go into learning with your goals at the forefront of your mind. During your conventional or non- conventional professional development sessions, engage in active listening and visualization and document goal-aligned ideas that resonate with you. Documentation starts off with a mental note that is then transferred to your notetaking space. While there are many techniques, it is especially important that you use a tool or format that works for you, and one you are dedicated to referencing often. During my 28 years in education, I have been dedicated to using notebooks and planners to document my thoughts during professional development and meetings. Research states that when we write, stronger neural connections are formed in the brain. “When you pen words on paper, the neurons in your brain fire signals at rapid speed, thus enabling you to make more connections” ~ Tucker. I have also found that notetaking makes me an even better listener. Some people choose to use digital platforms to record their ideas, and that works too. Since professional development is a connected journey, you will find yourself documenting ideas aligned to previously explored pedagogical strategies. This is wonderful! It means that you understand that ideas and strategies are not isolated in the journey of professional development. Your documentation can also be as creative as you want it to be! Many people create graphic organizers, pictures, doodle notes and other products to document notes. Again, use a technique that you are dedicated to, and that you will reference often. While research is still evolving about digital note taking, it is my belief that visualization coupled with any form of note taking is powerful and meaningful when information is used to engage in metacognition, ideation-prototyping, and implementation. Metacognition, Ideation-Prototyping and Ongoing Implementation with Actionable Reflection Whether you engage in conventional or non-conventional professional development, your time is only meaningfully spent when the great ideas you documented in your notetaking space are put into action. Putting your ideas into action involves metacognition, ideation-prototyping, and ongoing implementation with actionable reflection. Metacognition is “thinking about your thinking”, a concept that was originated by John H. Flavell. It is further described as “high order thinking which involved active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning” ~ Asia -Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology. At the metacognition stage you spend time thinking about the thoughts you wrote down, sorting, grouping, aligning ideas to goals and thinking about how and where to widely use them so you can authentically impact learning. Once you have engaged in thinking about your thinking, your next step is ideation-prototyping. In this blog, I have blended ideation with prototyping, both separate elements of design thinking. In ideation-prototyping you generate, develop, and create those out of-the-box unique and meaningful strategies using your documented notes. Along with your professional development notes, go back to your introspection notes and think about your whys and purpose and let your ideation-prototype creations be authentic, meaningful to the needs of your target group, aligned with goals and guided by who you are and the difference you want to make. Some professional development ideation-prototype creations can be a movement to learn or representing learning activity, an adult learning coaching cycle model, a blog, video, or anything else that is born from your professional development notes. If you have taken time to engage in all the stages mentioned in this blog and created excellent products, but stopped right before the implementation stage, then you have wasted time engaging in professional development and have not made the best of it. Ongoing implementation is one of the most powerful ways to make the most of professional development. You must implement the movement or representing learning activity you created, to let young or adult learners engage with it. Implement the adult learning coaching cycle model you created to learn and grow with teachers. Share the blog or video you created. Like professional development, implementation is not a one-time process or practice, it is a journey. Excellence in implementation is obtained from reflecting on its effectiveness and authenticity. In education, our ultimate focus is to ensure that we help young and adult learners unleash their unique talents, skills, and creativity. So ongoing implementation and reflection is needed to improve effectiveness, personalized learning and capitalizing on each leaner’s strength. Reflection here does not mean revamping your entire creation unless your initial creation needed more in-depth thoughts during the ideation-prototyping stage. There comes a time when you must balance change with the stability of your foundational ideas to have successful implementation. Depending on the leaders you have, you might meet resistance when trying to implement your ideas. Hopefully this is not the case for you, because all great leaders understand the value of making the most out of professional development and the benefits of adult learning principles. However, if your implementation is stifled, open new doors, share your ideas publicly via professional learning networks and be consistent about it; this makes people aware of the great confidence you have in the research-based and educated-informed ideas you share. Also, revisit your introspection document and pay close attention to your purpose, whys, uniqueness, and the notes you documented when meeting challenges. I have had many implementation ideas stifled and if I allowed them to be stifled, I would not have reached this point in my journey, writing this blog. Never let anything hold you back from making an excellent difference for your young and adult learners! Leading to Make the Best Out of Professional Development Leaders of students and leaders of adults, to make the best of professional development, we cannot stifle implementation. As leaders you have such an amazing opportunity to develop uniqueness and help young and adult learners use knowledge they gain in dynamic and meaningful ways. Oftentimes, though, leadership goes off track and becomes autocratic instead of transformational. In this era of individualization, we must change these styles and lead through the lens of culturally responsive, strengths-based, personalized learning and transformational leadership. As leaders you must make sure that you not only engage in introspection for understanding your purpose and confidence level, but also the ability to release the rein, your honesty and integrity levels, and an honest assessment of areas for change and growth. If you continue to hold the reins, you will be an instrumental factor in having professional development be a checklist item that you have attended, attained the certificate, and attained the promotion. As a result, young and adult learners will be blocked from gaining relevant, applicable, real-world knowledge and skills. You know you are an amazing and confident leader when instead of blocking those you lead from implementing what they learned, you instead attend professional development sessions, and make the most of it by practicing the steps outlined in this blog to impact your growth and develop your uniqueness in walking the talk. Professional development is only beneficial when you can use the skills and knowledge gained to unleash individuals’ talents and uniquely impact the workplace. Professional development is the key to helping our young learners and future professionals develop their skills and uniqueness. We are flooded with information everywhere, tons of it, including various versions of strategies and ways to make things better, and now with Chat GPT even more personalized and accessible knowledge. However, we are not flooded with the unique you, the unique learners in front of you with unique talents and strengths. The destination of professional development is the journey, and this blog is your guide to making the best of your professional development journey. “Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge, let your learning lead to action” ~ Jim Rohn. How are you going to make the best out of professional development? Are you going to use the professional development key to open doors for our young and adult learners or lock those doors? References
Elgens Labs. (2023). The Pros and Cons of Using Chat GPT. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pros-cons-using-chat-gpt-egens-lab Gonzalez, J. Note-Taking: A Research Roundup. A Cult of Pedagogy. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/note-taking How to Add Metacognition to Your Continuing Professional Development: Scoping Review and Recommendations. (2019, June). Asia-Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology. https://journals.lww.com/apjoo/fulltext/2019/05000/how_to_add_metacognition_to_your_continuing.12.aspx McLaurin, J. Principal’s Playbook. https://www.theprincipalsplaybook.com/educational-leadership/knowing-your-leadership-type Moore, D. 8 Steps to Effective Professional Development. Institute for Arts Integration and Steam. https://artsintegration.com/2018/06/01/8-steps-effective-professional-development Parsons, L. Why is Professional Development Important? Harvard Division of Continuing Education. https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/why-is-professional-development-important Segarra, K. (2021). How Writing Affects Your Brain, According to Science. The Writing Cooperative. https://writingcooperative.com/how-writing-affects-your-brain-according-to-science-e0259f006fa Skupin, S. (2020). “Know Thyself” As The Basis To Effective Professional Development. https://elearningindustry.com/know-thyself-as-the-basis-to-effective-professional-development Rampton, J. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using ChatGPT. https://www.calendar.com/blog/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-chatgpt Tucker, K. Why is Understanding Yourself Important in Your Career Development? https://work.chron.com/understanding-yourself-important-career-development-26398.html Upskilllist. The Importance and Benefits of Professional Development. https://www.upskillist.pro/blog/the-importance-and-benefits-of-professional-development Comments are closed.
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Cherry-Anne GildharryOn this page, you will find blogs on educational connections and my life's experiences. Ideas, thoughts and views are my own and are not representative of my employers. References/sources used are public articles found on the internet to support my blogs. Archives
April 2024
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