This last post is intended to offer some ideas and tips that will surely make professional development efforts worthwhile. To teach teachers is not an easy task; and these recommendations can assist in retaining them engaged, motivated, and focused in what is being presented or taught.

From personal experience, perceptions reveal that students most of the time behave better than teachers when receiving training or workshops. Sometimes, teachers don’t recognize that they do exactly what they dislike the most of their students; that is, that they don’t stop talking, or making jokes in class, or not paying attention at all.

Surely a good number of trainers have had similar perceptions; hopefully these tips will assist in developing professional development workshops successfully.

Tips

1. Professional development is an indispensable part of school success; especially when the school is making efforts to integrate technology in education. It is imperative for the school administration to allocate time and space for teachers to receive training from the IT department, colleagues, or invited guests so they can improve their standards in the class. For example, having a “short day” every two weeks just for professional development will help tremendously. One of the major inconveniences appears to be that teachers don’t have open spaces in their agendas; so most of the training has to be one-on-one, which consumes a lot of time and resources, and has a tendency to lose momentum.
2. Create a professional development catalog with a variety options. There are a score of tools teachers would like to learn to apply in their classrooms; however, not all the tools that function for a teacher have the same effectiveness for others. It is important to offer a good variety of options and recommend what could perform better for them. For example, a math teacher probably would not be very interested in having a forum where students can make comments or posts on a specific subject; this would be more appropriate for other departments such as social studies, science or philosophy. Always use common sense.  Workshops that don’t apply to what is envisaged are going to waste teacher time, and consume “learning” time in technology that is not going to be used.
3. Every teacher has distinctive knowledge and skills in technology; the course catalog must consistently cover the basics. Each course, tool, or resource presented must have a pre requisites form. It happened to me that I was providing a workshop on Google Apps, and a teacher didn’t have enough basic knowledge to go further, so she walked away; that’s not supportive at all. Having a pre requisites form will ensure that the teachers going to professional development workshops have the necessary background knowledge so that the workshop will not be disrupted.
4. Small groups work better. Try to limit sessions to a maximum of six teachers; it works much better than having 10 or 15 at once. More quality time can be dedicated to each individual, and it’s easier to control and to have them engaged in what is being presented.
5. Create a handout with professional development notes. Every training or workshop will have a much better impact if a handout or how-to with the session notes is provided. Teachers can go back and check the document after the session is finished, and it will support an evidence of what the teachers are being taught.
6. Take a survey at the end of the session. The most proficient way to gauge results is by a quick survey. Pay attention to what participants have to say in order to improve future professional developments. For example, our school was providing some sessions on Mimio; presentations were for 45 minutes, leaving very small amount of time for practice with the tool.  It was evident after the survey was conducted that most of the teachers would have preferred a more “hands-on” session. For the following session, more time was allotted to the session, and to making it much more interactive. This yielded much better results. Without a survey it would have been difficult to identify this type of weakness or deficiency.
7. Keep everything in place before the session starts. Presenters must be sure to have everything that is needed in place and in working order before the session starts. It is dreadful to have to spend session minutes fixing or plugging the projector, or making the device work and so forth. This type of inconveniences tend to distract the attention and sometimes cause the audience lose interest.
8. Be well prepared always. Presenters must be prepared to answer any question teachers might have; otherwise, the professional development workshop can lose credibility.
9. Always prepare a program for the session and follow it. Nothing is more annoying than being in a professional development workshop that hesitates in the subjects presented. Keeping the session organized and well-planned is essential to maintain the audience engaged.
10. Last but not least, create real-world examples into the professional development session. It is easy and more engaging for the audience when presented with “real-world” environment. Using examples that can be applied in the classroom work much better that just showing how to “technically” use a tool or resource. It’s more engaging for teachers to learn how to use a tool in the classroom than just learn how to use a tool.

Hopefully, these tips and posts will help in the endeavors of providing outstanding professional development workshops in schools. If there are other ideas or thoughts let’s share them.