Pro-D and Andragogy

Changing the Face of Professional Development

Every administrator wants to make their teachers better and every teacher has this same drive. In fact, one of the main aspects of being a professional is that developing yourself within that profession is expected; this idea of a life-long learner should be nowhere more apparent than in our educators. However, I believe as Edwards Demings mentioned, that "the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management" (Deming, W. Edwards. 1993. The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education, second edition). In essence, it is arguable therefore that the following statement is true: the performance of our teachers is governed largely by the school administrative structure itself.

So what should administrators do to help our teachers to be successful? I believe that the best scenario would be to plan it in the same way as you would for classroom student success (however, I would not follow the same delivery system as a classroom would; more on this later). The framework that I have begun using is as follows:

1. Find out what the goal of the school / teachers is (end product)
2. Find out what's missing (what is not in place - this might take some poling of staff)
3. Put people and processes in place for discussion and pro-d around only those areas (specific)
4. Allow for teachers to choose which discussions / pro-d they take or allow for multiple ones to be taken in a day

The difference in comparison to the way Pro-D is done now in many districts and the way I am proposing it be done is mostly in the first step: deciding on an end product first. This is, in essence, backwards design. This year, following this process will be easy as we have a new curriculum to implement K-9; thus, the goal is already set: have teachers create their course outlines using the new curriculum ( I am adding that I would like this to be done before they go home for the summer - a daunting task actually). To do this, some things that are missing are 

• a close look at the new curriculum (something I started at our last Pro-D but will continue with special guests and other resources in the new year)
• a list of who will be teaching what
• some looking at teaching pedagogy that successfully implements the curriculum. 

As mentioned, one of the goals for successful implementation will be to find the right people to help my staff to implement the curriculum effectively. Once that is in place, you would think that it is done: that is not the case however, as successful delivery is also important.

I believe that the delivery system should not be lecture based, with the standard PowerPoint, speaker, teachers all listening to the same speech, high school or college-like lesson. The reason for this is in the fact that I do not believe that adults learn or should be taught in the same way as kids. Standard classroom teachers have all been taught to teach pedagogy (peda meaning kids; in fact, the Greek word
is paidagōgía which means office of a child's tutor). Sadly, however, many administrators and Pro-D speakers use this same teaching style with the teachers. Instead, what they should be doing is Andragogy, which is the study of how to teach adults. This term was first coined by Alexander Kapp, in 1833, but it fell into disuse for most of the 1900's. The biggest recent proponent of this style of study is Malcolm Knowles (1913 -1997). There are some issues with the original idea, and Knowles himself has adapted and changed his view, but the concept is in my opinion correct - many adults tend to learn differently than kids do.

There is a small caveat here however, and it is one that Knowles accepted: the split between adult and kid is not age related, but should instead by seen as a continuum. In a recent (1996) article by A. Hanson called "The search for separate theories of adult learning: does anyone really need andragogy?", he argues that the difference in learning is not related to the age and stage of one's life, but instead related to individual characteristics and the differences in "context, culture and power" within different educational settings. I would agree and add that the context in question is thus: educators. Thus, one could argue that they all share a context, a culture, and a power, and so a more andragogious style of teaching is needed, one that is appropriate to their profession and their quest to be lifelong learners. My exact plan will be to have the Pro-D days more collaborative, self-directed, and focused on the real life task to be solved.