October 2018 – Professional Development

[Anne Hendler]

Share your experiences of PD/CPD. What works for you? Why? What doesn’t work? What are you doing that you think everyone should try?

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

One of the best talks I’ve seen recently on this topic was from IATEFL:

“What does research say about effective professional development? Does it even matter? For the past year, Silvana Richardson and Gabriel Diaz Maggioli have been working with our Teacher Development team to explore the current research into what makes effective professional development for teachers.

In the talk, Silvana and Gabriel:

– Define professional development
– Discuss why evidence-informed professional development is what you should pursue
– Look at features of what evidence says professional development should do
– Give examples you can take back and implement in your institutions”

Inspired professional development in ELT: the road ahead

Following the above, you can see the recording on YouTube and read the Whitepaper which we summarised and discussed in The Teachers’ Room today 🙂

[Philip Shigeo Brown (Phil)]

Next week in The Teachers’ Room, in addition to sharing our experiences of INSPIREd professional development (Silvana and Gabriel, 2018, IATEFL), let’s discuss the teaching plateau.

When do you feel that your teaching is no longer improving (as much as it used to)? Do you feel you’ve reached the peak of your teaching or a plateau? And what can we do to overcome it?

A couple of teachers share their thoughts and experiences on the British Council blog:

Teaching plateau – how I overcome it

Climbing above the teaching plateau

[Anne Hendler]

Thank you for sharing about the teaching plateau.

I had heard about a learning plateau – and I experienced it with my learning in a few subjects (Korean, French, physics even). I gave up ever getting any further.

I guess it makes sense that with teaching you could get complacent and find a level that is “comfortable” and take a break from CPD. And I don’t really see anything wrong with that. Most people have jobs where they work from 9-5, only attend mandatory meetings and PD sessions that their company pays for, don’t take work home (even mentally), and don’t worry very much about that. If they were asked to do something outside their normal workload, you might hear words like “worker exploitation” rather than words like “it’s a calling”.

I worry sometimes that our profession drives people to burn-out with the constant message that they are never, ever good enough.

(Sorry for the cynicism)

[Author]

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