PD session you attended in which you felt, during the session or by the end of it, that you had changed? That you had new insights into yourself, your students, or your situation? That you had acquired new skills?
Can you recall another PD session that you attended where perhaps you felt ambivalent about in the moment but later the ideas from that session percolated into your mind? Maybe those ideas prompted you to try something different at work?
Elena recalls a slew of PD experiences as a teacher that resulted in her growth and development: a district‐wide August training for 300 third‐grade teachers on a new math curriculum during which she spent days exploring manipulatives and being a “student” as a master teacher demonstrated the lessons; a series of arts integration PD sessions in which Elena was given time to plan lessons and get feedback on how she had incorporated the arts; a two‐year teacher inquiry project in which Elena did action research in her classroom. Each of these learning experiences changed, and improved, what Elena did as a teacher.
In contrast, Elena also remembers other so‐called PD sessions that she was asked to attend, from which she walked away mumbling something like, “a total waste of time.”
We've all attended meetings that were called PD in which the facilitator clicked through a massive slide deck, shared too much background, disconnected data, and a few dictionary definitions, and gave mandates. We may have taken in the information and complied with the mandates, but there was no learning going on inside of us. Perhaps it appeared that our behavior changed—we did what we were told. But we did so out of compliance and fear of repercussions, not because we'd learned and grown. Those meetings, therefore, were not professional development.
Let's stop using the term PD when what happens doesn't involve learning.
PD Structures
Identifying the structures in which PD happens helps us home in on an understanding of PD. In schools, PD typically happens in the twice‐a‐month all‐staff PD meetings or on a Wednesday afternoon or during the two intensive days in August before school starts when the district convenes teachers for training on a new initiative. PD can also take other forms: When teachers who are part of a professional learning community (PLC) undertake an inquiry project together, that's PD. Instructional Rounds can also be PD. Individual and team coaching is PD. And PD can also take place via an online course, at a conference, or through a book study.
While any of these structures—and there are many more—can house PD, we don't know whether true PD is happening until we consider development. And here we get at the core of our definition of PD: The goal of PD is to change practice.
The Goal of PD
Professional development is defined by its impact. PD is successful if, after the learning experience, the learner can do something else, or do something different. PD isn't PD if the learner doesn't change, if the learner doesn't learn. Sometimes this learning is evident in the PD session itself, and sometimes the learning isn't evident until a later date, but it's the learning that defines PD.
Transformative impact is the result of a shift in behaviors and beliefs. Every action we take emerges from a belief. New behaviors—new changes in practice—come from new beliefs. New behaviors can generate new beliefs, and new beliefs can generate new behaviors. We'll explore this more in the next section.
Transformative Professional Development
This book's premise is that all PD can and must be transformative. To understand what transformative PD is, let's start with its opposite: transactional PD. PD that is transactional is characterized by the following:
Learners are seen as passive subjects who need to be filled with knowledge that they are lacking.
An expert on the stage transmits knowledge to learners.
The emphasis of the learning is on acquiring new knowledge.
The unspoken goal of the training is to ensure compliant behavior from the subjects.
Rewards are often offered for acquiring knowledge and performing desired behavior; veiled threats may be suggested for not doing so.
If you've ever attended a sit‐and‐get training, you've experienced transactional PD. If you've felt like PD sessions were packed and you didn't have a moment to think and you were a little nervous about whether you were doing the right thing and whether the presenter would call you out and embarrass you, you may have been in a transactional PD session. If you've attended a PD session where you knew there were right and wrong answers, you were likely in a transactional PD session.
So, what makes PD transformative? To answer that, we need to begin with defining transformation. On an individual level, transformation occurs in the domains of “the Three Bs”—in a person's behaviors, beliefs, and ways of being (Aguilar, 2013). Transformation is not just about doing something different, but also about unpacking the mindsets connected to the actions.
Let's understand this by comparing two PD sessions on diverse representation in curriculum. In what we'll call Session A, teachers are presented with a slideshow and lecture explaining the research on “mirrors and windows” (Sims Bishop, 1990). (A mirror is a story that reflects your own culture and helps you build your identity; a window offers you a view into someone else's experience.) Subsequently, they are presented with a list of books that they must teach to diversify their curriculum.
In contrast, in what we'll call Session B on the same topic, teachers are guided through a reflection on their own identity experiences, they explore their beliefs about the need for students to read books that are mirrors and windows, and they have opportunities to discuss the emotions that arise when teaching books with characters whose identities they don't share. They might also review some of the research and listen to portions of books that could be adopted into the curriculum.
Which of these sessions could be transformative? In Session A, there's no learning going on. In Session B, there's the potential for learning.
Here's another example. At some point in their careers, many teachers attend PD on classroom management. When the PD consists of being told to do this and that, or don't do this or that, very little learning is happening. A transformative PD session on classroom management likely includes the following:
An exploration of how to develop relationships with students and of the beliefs that teachers have about power, control, and respect
Opportunities for teachers to practice using new strategies and to get feedback
Time for teachers to recognize and acknowledge the stew of emotions that they experience in the profession
A deconstruction of the beliefs the lie beneath traditional approaches to classroom management, and an opportunity to redefine management
A chance for learners to make the connection between management strategies and their vision for themselves as teachers and people
Transformative PD—PD that changes behaviors, beliefs, and ways of being—is holistic and comprehensive. Too many PD providers focus exclusively on behavior change, and while ultimately facilitators of transformational PD aspire to see changes in practitioners' behaviors, we know that we must also address, explore, and change beliefs and ways of being. Behaviors will change permanently, and the outcome
