‘Is it close to a coffee shop?’
‘Is parking easy?’
‘Do I get to go home early?’
I admit, these are real questions I may or may not have asked out loud when considering what PL to attend back when I was looking to escape my classroom responsibilities and spend a day not having to race to the toilet at each break or waste the afternoon away sharpening pencils.
I know this was not the best criteria to use when looking for PL.
Unfortunately, Professional Learning in schools, as valuable as it can be, is often left to the teacher to source or is offered to teachers when as leaders something nice appears in your inbox (I too am guilty of this). What we know though is the most valuable and impactful PL opportunities lie in things which align to a bigger school focus, have more than one staff member attend and are used to establish further change and transformation in schools and classrooms. One day PL events are just not this.
Within Real Schools Academy we have carefully thought of and designed our Intensive Courses for teachers so that purpose, impact and investment are catered too. Teachers can choose their own area of need, work at their own pace, reflect on their practice and also engage in an online community to have deeper conversations with colleagues about their learning.
The way we offer Professional Learning for teachers in our schools needs to shift. These 3 key areas are a great place to start. If you are interested in knowing a bit more about this, I have written a white paper titled ‘Why Our Current Approach to Professional Learning for Teachers Needs to Shift’, you can request your copy here.
It is time we made all Professional Learning Purposeful, Impactful and worth the Investment.
Warm regards,
