EL Study Guide

• How does your school or district plan for professional learning? What are the ultimate goals of this learning? What do you do to ensure the learning experiences lead toward those goals?
• Have you experienced professional learning that falls into the "activity trap" that Guskey describes? What are some signs that learning is more focused on the journey than on the destination?
• Think of a student learning outcome you'd like to achieve. Now work through the backward-planning steps in Guskey's article to sketch out a plan for a professional learning experience that leads to this goal. (See "A Backward Planning Case Study.") Share the plan with your PLC for feedback on how well it would work in your school or district. If you're in a position to do so, consider presenting the plan to your school or district leaders.

Who's in Charge?

Several authors in this issue discuss the value of having teachers take charge of their own learning by visiting one another's classrooms and discussing what they see. In "Rethinking Classroom Observation," Emily Dolci Grimm, Trent Kaufman, and Dave Doty describe a teacher-driven observation mold in which observed teachers seek help answering a specific question about their instruction. In "The Trouble with Top-Down," Rebecca Van Tassell shares how she and her colleagues created a club centered on visiting one another's classrooms and discussing what they observed.

• What opportunities are available at your school for teachers to observe one another in their classrooms? How do you ensure that those observations are of value for the observers and the observed?
• The observation programs in both articles have a structure. The model that Grimm, Kaufman, and Doty describe uses a protocol and Van Tassel's colleagues used observation and discussion prompts to keep them focused. How important are such structures to an observation program? What kind of structure would work well in your school?
• When the observation program at Van Tassell's school became a schoolwide requirement, the learning faltered. How might a school that wants to implement an observation program avoid some of the difficulties her school encountered?

New Kinds of Conferences

Education conferences are more than opportunities for educators to attend workshops led by big-name presenters. In fact, new models have cropped up that require educators to become active in planning and participating in the learning. Edcamps ("Edcamp: Teachers Take Back Professional Development" by Kristen Swanson) and the Crossroads model ("The Crossroads Model," by John Settlage and Adam Johnston) offer two new ways to conduct a professional conference.

• What kinds of experiences do you most value at a professional conference? How would you change conferences to make them even more useful?
• Both Edcamp and Crossroads depend on the active participation of educators who attend. The attendees are themselves the experts, and they learn from one another. What do you see as the benefits and drawbacks of this participant-driven approach?
• Edcamp participants show up without a schedule or prepared presentation. The attendees plan out the day after they arrive. Crossroads participants prepare ahead of time by writing about a professional Vexation they'd like to discuss and submitting it to the hosts for consideration. Which approach appeals to you most? For what kinds of learning might each model be best suited?
• Many Edcamps incorporate technology, often through back-channel conversations that take place among session attendees and others who observe the discussions from afar. In contrast, Crossroads requires that participants put away their smartphones and other technology during sessions. How do you use social media and other interactive technology at conferences? Does it tend to detract from or enhance the experience for you?

The Role of Technology

Technology now makes it possible for teachers to learn at a time and place that fits their schedule. Teachers can take free online courses to build pedagogical knowledge ("Grab a MOOC by the Horns" by Anissa Lokey-Vega). Administrators can flip their professional development, asking teachers to use online resources to learn the material on their own and use face-to-face sessions to build on their independent study ("Flipping the Flip" by Patricia Gioffre Scott).

• What kinds of learning have you done online? Share which experiences have been most beneficial and which needed improvement. How is online learning different from face-to-face learning? How can the two be combined to take advantage of the best aspects of each?
• Browse the list of education-related MOOCs at Coursera and the online MOOCs Directory. Which courses seem most relevant to your professional goals? How might you make that course part of your professional learning? Are there colleagues who might join you in working through and discussing the course materials?
• If you plan professional development for your school or district, think about a topic that you'd like teachers to learn more about and consider how you might "flip" that learning. What obstacles to flipping your PD do you think you might encounter, and how could you work around those obstacles? What would you have teachers do during your face-to-face sessions? Share your proposal with a few teachers to get their feedback on the approach.