Doing Development Differently

Teachers Need Training Too! A New Model For Development

by Landon Phillips

Development plays a pivotal role in a teacher’s career, yet many departments haven’t settled on how to best implement an effective development program. Even here at Technology and Learning we are constantly looking for new and improved ways to offer training to faculty. We have several Faculty Professional Development programs that run throughout the year, we have a semi annual Technology and Learning Conference, and we run the Faculty Speaker Series several times a semester just to name a few. As I was wondering how we can improve this preexisting methods, I began to look for examples of what others do. And where better to look than to the 2014 teacher of the year, Katie Brown?
Apparently Bill Gates had a similar idea (great minds think alike) and so he sat down with Katie for an interview. In it, they discuss the importance of collecting data, collaboration, and professional development. During the interview she mentions:

“We’ve known for a long time that most students won’t learn if you just stick them in a classroom and make them listen to a lecture. They have to put the learning to use and make it relevant to their own lives. And yet most teachers still get their professional development at seminars and conferences, where they sit listening to lectures. ‘We would never do that with kids,’ Katie said, ‘but we still do it with teachers.’”

So in order to improve teacher training, Katie and her school broke it down into four main areas, explained here:

Be sure to check out the entirety of the article here. Do you think this method would work here at Pepperdine? If you could structure training or development differently, what would you like to see put into practice? Let us know! You can contact us at techlearn@pepperdine.edu. We'd love to hear from you!