The activities we have done in class so far, has made learning about knots a blast. Working hands on to develop an understanding for knots, makes it much easier to understand, than if we were just given definitions, formulas, etc. When it comes to professional development, this rarely is the case, especially at the secondary level.
I have been teaching for three years and I have not experienced any hands on professional development. I would say about 90% of the professional development I have had over the past three years has been curriculum work. Due to NEASC, schools have to have all curriculum and common assessments documented formally on unit plan templates, so that is what most of our PD time is spent doing. When we are not doing curriculum work, we are watching speakers talk all day long. For example, this past fall, I attended a two day PD on trauma. The speaker was extremely knowledgeable and I was interested in learning about the content, but it was EXTREMELY difficult to sit and listen to this man talk for 2 days, 8 hours straight, each day. The presentation was not engaging at all, causing me to lose interest and focus very quickly. This is what we see in our classrooms too when lecturing to much/often. Yes, we are adults and have a longer attention span, BUT we get very little out of being talked out for hours on end.
I understand that curriculum is important and I do believe it should be documented, however I do think there should be a mix between curriculum work PD and engaging presentation type PD. Providing teachers the opportunity to experience PD that entails hands-on activities like we are doing in class, I believe would give them the tools and motivation to want to be more hands-on in the classroom.
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