Relevant PD

Does changing one's practice, change their beliefs or does changing the beliefs change one's practice? Today we brought staff together to explain the rollout of the professional development for our Realizing the Vision III in November. The rollout consisted of a powerpoint put together by the district and sent out to all schools to give staff an introduction to the topic of formative assessment.

Now keep in mind this is a high school staff with all the preconceived notions about having difficulty adapting to change. One teacher asked, "Is there documented research to prove that formative assessment works?" I cited several authors they could research on formative assessment and why it is important to classroom instruction. Basically, if any teacher changes instruction to meet the learning needs of students because of formative assessment, could only benefit students. Another teacher challenged me by asking "If we consistently change instruction to meet the needs of students, when do they (the students) take responsibility for their independent learning?" The quip that exited my lips, definitely wasn't well thought out. I said "Not all adults are independent learners. Both students and adults come to educational settings to learn new things. If all of our students were independent learners, we probably wouldn't need schools, teachers, universities, etc." Ok, it was an off-handed slam, but I'm not remorseful about my comment.

The last comment was followed up by the teacher with "Students will be expected to be independent learners in college and we should be preparing them for that." I followed up with "Students will definitely need post-secondary education, but not all of it will be independent learning." Part of me thinks the teacher just wanted to verbally challenge me in front of staff. No doubt that most of the staff saw through the antics. However, this type of resistance is not out of the norm. Generally, I'm not good at comebacks. I'm more of a reflective person that must take time to align my thoughts. Yet, I know in curriculum work resistance is definitely part of the playing field and full agreement is usually not possible. Consensus is nice. Sometimes even that isn't possible. Sometimes, change needs a definite PUSH.

The question, then, is how do you sway opinion and improve practice? Research? Great idea, if they read it and intrepret it properly. Present data? Another good choice if you can keep the excuses out of the discussion and again intrepret it properly. The only thing that has a strong correlation to change practice is with observation, collaboration, cooperation and discussion. The trouble is, it takes so long! It does provide, however, buy in. Without it, the change is dead in the water. You know what they say, "If a leader looks behind him and no one is following then he/she isn't really leading."

It is discouraging, though, that the teachers today (and, yes, it was just a few) were rejecting the idea of formative assessment without knowing much about it. Sometimes the quest for power by these individuals just gets in the way of progress. I wish they knew how silly they look to their peers.