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This August I had the privilege of working with approximately 25 other educators for 2 weeks in Traverse City creating Understanding by Design Instructional Units, which are part of a State Dept. vision. This was indeed a winning formula for maximum production by classroom teachers!

Not everyone can sing in the choir. So, reasonably, not everyone can or may want to participate in a collaborative project to bring administrative vision to life. I believe that many great administrative visions and innovative ideas have fallen by the way side because the task of molding their vision is given to the general population of teachers who may or may not be inspired by this vision.

I believe the MDE event organizers scored 3 major points:

1. Identified teachers who are interested and motivated to work on the state department vision. This alone lent a level of productivity, creativity and competitiveness that I have never seen in any professional development. By working with teachers eager to be there and willing to undertake this project, each teacher’s repertoire was expanded to include the best inclusive practices of the team. In turn, these early adopters will be a big asset in the dissemination of the benefits of this new teaching philosophy.
2. Introduced a new learning philosophy in a way that teachers not only gain knowledge but also get had ample time to practice what they learn. In addition, the teachers also had a required final product to which to apply what they learned.
3. The new learning philosophy was taught by teachers who are successful practitioners of said philosophy. It was inspiring to learn from teachers who taught a learning philosophy that they themselves use in their dally practice.

• In order to improve student learning, teachers have to strive to improve the collective dialog about instruction.Very little professional development time is spent talking about the improvement of student learning by examining one’s own teaching process.

• Teachers need to reconsider the relevancy of their assessment tools.In this experience, I learned to analyze the validity of the traditional assignment rubrics that most teachers, including myself, use. Are most rubric values created to assess the lesson’s objectives? If the lesson objective is to prove content understanding, is it logical to expect a student to provide proof of understanding by the quantity of work they turn in? (e.g. number of pages, number of examples, etc.). The introduction of reflection pieces into the assessment tool kit not only ensures content understanding but also retention and long term transference.

• Experience does not equal expertise.Part of the reluctance to embrace a new approach is the notion that time spent in the classroom merits a general understanding all things academic. Being placed in an environment that was truly tailored to teach teachers in an effective and respectful way, I was profoundly moved by my lack of proficiency and ineffective practices in my own teaching career.

Often times teachers are given common planning time for team or department meetings, but seldom have an established process or structure to allow these meetings to be productive. We spend a great amount of time discussing issues that are peripheral, rather than central, to our daily learning plans. In this experience, there was a clear plan and even more clear outcomes that served as a strong skeleton on which to teach veteran teacher like me new tricks.