Match the headings with the texts.

• Объекты 1
  • Every teacher faces unique classroom challenges and comes to work each morning with a different set of skills.
    However, in the name of time, cost and efficiency, many professional development opportunities for teachers are too broad and not relevant to most, or even many, of the teachers attending.
    If you want professional development to be relevant, ask your teachers for their suggestions — there’s a good chance that they have plenty to say.
    Give teachers a choice about what or how they learn. Give different options for workshops or courses they can take.
    If you can’t offer different options, keep the topic simple. Go for depth instead of breadth, and make sure that teachers come away from the session with all the information they need to start using it in the classroom.
    Ask for feedback at the end of the session, and then use it to continue the cycle. Ask teachers what worked, what didn’t, what they would change and what they’d like to learn more about next time.
  • Most teachers will tell you they don’t enjoy being treated like students -- they’re educated professionals who are there to develop an existing, unique and powerful skillset.
    In this scenario, it’s unlikely that the session is going to have a meaningful impact or inspire change in the classroom. A lack of engagement is just as fatal for teachers as it is for students.
    If you’re running a session about active learning in the classroom, use active learning techniques. Teachers need to be interested and engaged. Just like their students, teachers learn in different ways and respond differently to auditory, kinesthetic, written or visual learning methods.
  • In 2015, a survey by The New Teacher Project found that even though districts spend an average of $18,000 per teacher each year, only about 30 per cent of teachers noticeably improved as a result.
    At some level, professional development is always going to cost money for your school and district. But you can control one of the other major costs: your teachers’ time. Effective learning doesn’t take place in an afternoon, and often teachers and administrators struggle to fit teacher professional development opportunities around actually teaching.
    Time is a commodity that you cannot avoid using — but you can spend it wisely. This doesn’t mean spending less time on teacher professional development activities, but it means maximizing the time that you do have.
    This can happen in a few different ways:
    Make sure you’re giving your teachers effective and actionable feedback that helps them to improve. If teachers don’t know where they can do better, they’re not going to ever have the opportunity to act.
  • A Professional Development Plan sets out individual learning goals for educators on a short-term or long term basis, and gives clear steps for achieving them.
    Sit down with educators in your school and determine what factors should influence their individual plans:
    Figure out how individual teachers measure up against your school’s standards. Challenge them to keep learning and stretching their professional capacities, and encourage them to continue developing their career.
    Use the SMART goal system to set achievable goals: make them Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. Track them on a monthly and yearly basis to see how teachers are progressing and improving.
    Work with teachers to ensure that they have access to any other resources they might need: courses, certification classes or even emotional support as they try new techniques in the classroom.
• Объекты 2
  • Make it specific
  • Get teachers invested
  • Embed it into the teaching process
  • Personalize teacher learning with a Professional Development Plan