According to Aaron Cooke, Program Manager for Data Analytics at Southern Oregon ESD, “We seem to want to focus on what we're doing with students, and obviously we need to do that, but there's another piece to this that's a huge investment, and that's what you do with your staff. What's the investment and what's your return on that and how efficient are you with presenting it? We're going to be talking about managing professional development resources for efficiency and long-range use. Is it a long-term resource or is it not?
“We spend millions, probably hundreds of million dollars around the country to train educators. And it misses two vital parts of adult learning theory. Because remember, if we're talking about adults, we're really talking about adult learning theory. And the idea is repeated dosage and just-in-time access. So, what we do is we bring in somebody and she comes and she's sitting in an auditorium with two or 300 teachers, and she's gives this awesome presentation and then she leaves. And we don't do anything after. As a principal, I don't have people reflect back on it. As a teacher, I don't look at some additional pieces and go through that and I don't have a way to re-watch it again.”
In this very important discussion, Cooke explores ways to maximize the benefits of professional development, with some quality step-by-step methodology that you can take back to your own school or district immediately.
