Ways that we can help

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Professional development needs careful design to meet the needs of the practitioners and support the mission of the course. From one-day sessions, to multi-day workshops, to a series of progressively developmental engagements, we can provide advice or design a program for your own implementation.

Perhaps your instructors are expressing dissatisfaction with the current PD efforts. Or, limited resources are affecting the quality and duration of PD efforts. Our consultation may be a way to find a different path to achieve the results you - and your teaching staff is looking for.

Programs sometimes fail to account for the needs of individuals and the needs of the team to support the organization's mission. We assist both by careful design and activities that encourage communication, coordination, and cooperation. One person's success should not detract from the team, and likewise, the team's work should not diminish individual efforts. The work of the task and the work of being a team are equally important.

It is often the case that teachers and instructors exist in the bubble of their learning setting. They benefit when they observe others teaching the same or similar topics. New perspectives, new ideas, different methods. Another way is to form a community of like-minded faculty that undertake simple research into what is working and what is not. Limited resources are required but organization and leadership support is helpful.

Organization leaders and program administrators complain that there is little evidence of ROI from PD programs. Usually this is a mismatch between the organizations goals and their practitioners needs. But it can also be a result of insufficient support. It is hard to implement new methods and without support practitioners will revert to prior techniques. Simple interventions and coaching techniques employed by supervisors and leaders can make the difference.

Subject matter experts can be challenged to teach what they know and can do. For the most part they will teach in the same ways that they were taught. Without science-based knowledge about how people learn, instructors (and their students) might suffer. When SMEs have the opportunity to intellectually and practically challenge their own thinking about teaching and learning they tend to implement enduring changes in their practices.