I've been thinking this week about CPD and more specifically how we deliver it to teachers. As teachers, we are trained on the best ways of explicitly teaching new knowledge to students however quite often we don't use the same techniques when teaching teachers. Why?
Most, if not all of the techniques we use with students should also be used with teachers: retrieval of knowledge, teacher led instruction, opportunities for formative assessment. The difficulty with delivering CPD to teachers though is that there group you are delivering to is often very diverse in their understanding but will also be using the knowledge in different subjects and in different ways. It is a difficult task for anyone delivering CPD.
As part of my PD Lead course, I am being trained up to deliver effective CPD to teachers. Within the course we have spoken about having a common starting point, e.g. it could be a Maths question based on the topic I want to deliver to the Maths team, it could be asking teachers to bring with them an example of how they formally assess students. This can then spark discussion and reflection about what is effective and what can be improved on. From here I like to back up a few ideas with some research that I may have found or some quotes that link to what we are doing. What you will notice is that I haven't put my own opinion out there, I am able to lead the teachers down the path I want them to follow by highlighting some best practice i have seen around the room already and then backing it up with the research. Its an idea I have read about called finding the 'bright spots'.
Find areas of good practice, highlight it and back it up. It helps to show other teachers that it is something they can do and not just something the leadership team are forcing upon them.
EXTRA CPD
📚 Read:
Colin Fosters blog post discussing teaching times tables effectively. We have put a big focus on this with our current year 7s and it has made a massive difference in class. Knowing their times tables fluently reduces cognitive load and allows students to more easily understand the topic we are currently learning as their prior knowledge is stronger.
🔊 Listen:
Bobby Seagull on Deep Dive podcast. This is a great one for inspiring you to put the effort in and don't let anything limit your potential. He talks about an equation, Angela Duckworth mentions in her book Grit, where Success is determined by your effort squared. Well worth a listen, catch it here.
🔊 Listen:
I am Jonny Wilkinson talking to Dr Mithu Storoni. We need to have uncertainty and challenge to feel alive. Negativity bias, focus on negatives so much that you over compensate to try and avoid failure and train over the top like Jonny did. Lots to think about after this, may have to re listen a few times to let it sink in.
🔊 Listen:
Paul Spencely on ERRR podcast discussing formative assessment. Talks about planning the success criteria first and then the starter to determine students prior knowledge before worrying about the learning in the current lesson. Objectives may need different for different students and they may ask have different outcomes from the lesson and let takeaways for them.