Professional development can conjure images of dry, ineffective meetings for teachers, ice breakers, small talk, and time lost that could be spent doing anything else. Now some districts are exploring a more engaging way to develop their teachers without the typical monotony of PD.
Aimee Bloom, Supervisor of Instructional Technology for Buffalo Public Schools, discusses her work in transforming traditional PD into instructional technology coaching rounds and bringing it into a more communal space.
Teachers Learning From Teachers
As students have been expected to learn subjects in one grade and bring that knowledge into the next grade, teachers are expected to continue this cycle without knowing whether the students are going to seamlessly integrate into a new curriculum. In short, an imaginary barrier exists between grade levels, curriculums, and teachers, and navigating that can be a challenge.
Bloom has integrated a system of instructional technology coaching rounds that operate similar to medical rounds. It creates a structure that eliminates that barrier and helps teachers learn from each other without feeling judged.
“Instructional rounds are nothing new to education,” says Bloom. “They’re very similar to when doctors go on their rounds with their residents, and they learn how to do medical procedures, how to talk to patients, and how to learn the medical profession.”
Bloom notes that teachers are observing students all the time, so translating that to an instructional round allows teachers to observe and learn from one another.
“You don’t get a lot of time to work with peers and learn from one another,” she says. “So I had the idea a few years ago to do these instructional rounds with our teachers, and five or six of us went to each other’s buildings. They just carried on their normal classroom [routines]. We would [then] get together, talk about norms, how we see each other fit in our everyday [lives].”
Having these sessions gives teachers a stress-free environment to collaborate with one another about what and how they teach. With the amount of intangibles that exist in education, learning how others conduct their classrooms can help to bridge the gap between curriculums and grade levels, potentially leading to more well adjusted students.
Benefits and Detriments of Instructional Rounds
When creating new approaches to educational collaboration, such as a new approach to PD, there are bound to be benefits as well as obstacles to overcome.
“The Buffalo School District is a large school district,” Bloom says, “Not every single one of my instructional coaches have been in each other’s [schools]. There’s so much to learn from. Like, one of the schools I went to, a [multilingual] school, 47 different languages. We learned so much about making sure that there’s equity among programming. So there’s so much to be learned, especially in this role, because you never know where we are going to be placed next year.”
What about any potential blowback or adverse comparisons to traditional PD? What does a district need in order to implement this system among their schools and teachers?
“I’ve made this completely voluntary,” says Bloom. “I explain to them that there’s going to be a set of norms. They have a preliminary sheet that they have to fill out [about what to expect within the program]. Most of this is going to be that authentic learning experience. This is not prescribed. This is all what you would be experiencing just like if you’re a doctor with a resident doing your rounds.”
If your district would like to have a similar system in place, Blooms says that having volunteers over mandatory participation is key to generating the kind of interest you’d want. As an organic experience, letting teachers know they will be learning from one another (and not judged on their performance) is also important.
Bloom adds that having a core group of believers goes a long way toward getting a program such as this off of the ground.
“Start small to go big,” says Bloom. “Pick your front runners, pick the ones that are volunteering, and once it catches on, start from there. That’s the best way. Ideally, I would love to see this setting within a building where third grade teachers are going into fourth grade classrooms just to bridge that gap of curriculum a little bit, not for judgements. Just don’t force people to do it.”
What Tools Aimee Bloom Uses:
- Microsoft
- Schoology
- Adobe
- Canva
- Infinite Campus
- Clever