As a classroom teacher up until a few months ago, I was
always split on my opinion of professional development. I had loved some teacher training sessions,
and endured others while gritting my teeth and watching the clock travel ever
so slowly. So, it was with somewhat
bated breath that I ran my first training session this past Monday.
One of the large parts of what I do in my new job is assisting
other teachers with the use of our K-6 inquiry-based science program, SCIENCE
21. I almost always attend the
trainings, but never run them (we have consultants who have taught the
curriculum or helped develop it in the past).
So, even when I attend as “director,” I’m truly attending as “learner.” This training was different, however. As the Regional Science Coordinator here, I,
along with another colleague was training a group of twenty teachers on the
administration and “grading” of New York State’s Elementary-Level Science Test
(ELST).
The ELST requires a decent amount of setup so we began by
unpacking a number of boxes filled with equipment. I had done this before at the 8th
grade level, but this was my first time setting up the 4th grade
test.
This is an example of a PD session that folks attend because
they have to, not because they want to.
That can be a major issue for presenters at these types of sessions as
adults can be even harder to engage than children. In fact, most participants don’t arrive excited,
or particularly engaged. So it falls on
the presenters to work uphill from the start.
Happily, my co-presenter and I made a great team. His experience in leading this type of
training and my science content knowledge and recent classroom experience
meshed quite well, and I was pleased to see the positive feedback we received
on our evaluation forms. Discussion
about grading methods was good, and teachers enjoyed taking the test and rating
various student responses.
This session taught me quite a bit. First, the years I have under my belt as a
middle school educator have prepared me quite well to present in any given
situation. It should be a requirement
that anyone entering a “public-speaking” profession spend a year or two
teaching first (an “unlikely-to-occur requirement,” but an important one,
nonetheless). Second, just like with
students, an interesting topic can be made dull and a “requirement” made
intriguing simply by the way it is presented.
Finally, this type of work will need to be a part of my position moving
forward. As I’ve been out of the
classroom for a few months, I’ve realized how much I miss teaching. I love my position and with some
training/teaching built in, believe that I’ll be as professionally fulfilled as
I can imagine. Building more training
into my schedule should be something I can arrange quite effectively once I get
a few more months under my belt.
I’m happy to report that my transition from teaching young
adults to teaching “less young” adults was quite positive
and I’m excited to do even more of this work in the future. After one session, I’m already starting to
see a number of similarities and differences between teaching these varied age
groups. I’m excited to report more on
this as I gain more experience working with adults.
