Pedro Noguera answered many of our questions during his visit yesterday. One of the points he passionately spoke about was ensuring that the focus was always on the student, regardless of grade level. A second point was improving instruction by teaching teachers/instructors how to best teach their students (diversifying pedagogy).
At WCCCD we dedicated a large amount of our budget to professional development. An entire track was specific to improving the delivery of instruction. We discontinued these efforts because attendance was poor. Several years ago we decided to dedicate 1 day per semester for professional development. It occurs the Saturday prior to classes starting. During this 1 day event faculty are paid for attending and receive a list of workshops they can attend. I found that the majority of faculty chose to attend those led by other faculty. This year we decided to put out a call for presentations. We have about 6 faculty members who will be presenting. I expect them to be very well attended. This is just one successful way to get faculty to attend, and learn from, professional development.
What are some successes at your schools? Perhaps we can learn from each other and start improving classroom instruction 1 classroom at a time!
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