Summary of "Apply Adult Learning Theory and Best Practices into Professional Development Planning”

Video Transcription

In the unit Apply Adult Learning Theory and Best Practices into Professional Development Planning the learning objectives included evaluate the current professional development plan in your district or school using Knowles's six principles of adult learning theory, implement and deliver a survey on professional development wants and needs to your colleagues, propose a revision to the current professional development plan based upon analysis of survey data and review of principles, and reflect on the potential changes and impact on teacher growth and development based upon the analysis and proposal.

We began the unit by evaluating your district or school's current professional development plan. Here, we reviewed Knowles's six assumptions of adult learners, which were part of our study of andragogy. Here, we also took a quick look at an overview of district strategic plans.

And though at first glance this may seem a bit disjointed, we actually came to see how instrumental the elements of the district's strategic plan can be in supporting professional development, because each individual teacher's growth and development plan needs to be aligned with any site or school goals and initiatives. And those site or school goals and initiatives need to be aligned with those of the district, including those that are identified in any district improvement plan or a district strategic plan. And so this really fit in quite nicely in that process of evaluating the district's professional development plan. And one of the things we could check for was alignment to those district goals and initiatives. And then I introduced to you a three-step alignment process that we used very systematically to align that professional development plan to all six of Knowles's assumptions for adult learning.

With a really solid grasp, then, of the specific elements of your district or school's professional development plan, your next step was to create and deliver a survey on professional development wants and needs to your colleagues. As part of the process of designing this survey, we talked about structured and unstructured responses. These two different question and answer types have very different uses and very different situations in which they're appropriate.

So we spent a fair amount of time discussing these response types. I showed you some examples. And we discussed the pros and cons of each of these types of responses.

We then also discussed reliability, validity, and bias, because these are all issues that you want to keep in mind as you are writing your survey questions. You want your survey to give you an accurate view of the opinions and the needs and the wants of the people who are taking the survey. So by eliminating bias and by maximizing reliability and validity, you were able to create a survey that would actually measure what you wanted it to.

And, finally, you really went through the process of designing and implementing your survey. I gave you a hypothetical situation and talked you through the process of creating this survey just so you would have one more piece of information to refer to as you went through this process. But then it was up to you to identify any topics or issues that you wanted your survey to cover and to go through that creation and implementation process.

Our next learning objective, then, was to actually do something valuable with the results of that survey. You were prompted to propose a revision to that current professional development plan based upon your analysis of your survey data. So here we talked at great length about analyzing and reporting those survey results.

What methods can be used for analysis? Many online tools have analysis features just built right in. And in fact, many of them have reporting features built in, as well. But as part of this, I also shared with you some tips for effectively communicating those results to stakeholders in your school or district.

I also highlighted for you some issues that you may wish to consider when suggesting a revision. One key issue that we kept in mind through all stages of creating and implementing and analyzing the survey was the importance of considering all of the stakeholders. When you administered your survey it was important to carefully select the sample or the audience for your survey to ensure that all involved parties or all impacted individuals were going to be represented. And, likewise, when you were reporting on your results and proposing changes, it was important to make sure that all of that information was, again, communicated to all of those stakeholders.

And after going through this entire process, we were ready to reflect on the potential changes that might be prompted as a result of aligning your professional development to Knowles's six principles and then designing and implementing your survey and going through that process of suggesting a revision to the professional development plan. You were encouraged to reflect on any potential impact on teacher growth and development based on your hard work.

In this learning objective, we actually reflected more closely on all of the adult learning theories. It wasn't just limited here to andragogy and Knowles's six principles. We actually also talked about transformational learning theory and self-directed learning theory.

You had further opportunities here to reflect on your survey and on the data. Hopefully, you found that after going through the steps of suggesting a revision and then maybe taking a little break from your data, that coming back to it a little bit later and reflecting again with a fresh perspective maybe even helped you to identify other trends or other issues in your data that you hadn't even seen before.

And finally, in this learning objective, we really wanted to see the big picture. How can we keep the focus on fostering valuable and effective adult learning through our careful design of our professional development and through the data analysis also that we learned to implement in this unit? You now have at your disposal a set of very valuable tools that you can implement in order to carry on this cycle of continuous improvement, always wanting to have our finger on the pulse of the issues that are important to our staff members at any given time so that we can always be developing professional development that meets those staff members' needs and is consequently seen as valuable by those people who are participating.

To recap, the learning objectives in this unit included evaluate the current professional development plan in your district or school using Knowles's six principles of adult learning theory, implement and deliver a survey on professional development wants and needs to your colleagues, propose a revision to the current professional development plan based upon analysis of survey data and review of principles, and reflect on the potential changes and impact on teacher growth and development based upon the analysis and proposal.

Here's one last chance in this unit for you to stop and reflect. As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you may want to explore the Additional Resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly-acquired skill set. Thanks for joining me throughout this entire unit. Have a great day.