Designing Effective Professional Development

AKA: “How to start reading the best exit slips you’ve ever seen!”

Available Online, Self-paced, and In-person.

Effective Professional Development–especially for educators and caring professionals–happens on purpose. This content offering ensures that the time you and your team spend together in PD builds relationships, connects to purpose and values, and helps everyone move closer to achieving goals that matter as much to them as to you.

How to lead the best PD sessions your team has ever experienced.

You (or the person you have in mind for this content) is leading professional learning because of their expertise in something you’d like your team to put into practice. Beyond expertise, good instructors have a range of skills that help them ensure that everyone gets the most from their time together. Whether you participate online, self-paced, or in-person, you’ll leave ready to design amazing, powerful, and transformative learning experiences for your team.

Always	Never
Surprise and delight your learners.	Lead with compliance…even when compliance is the obvious goal.
Have a consistent, predictable structure and format.	Waste time.
Equip your participants to get started right away….after all, the purpose of professional learning is to live our learning out loud.	Train participants to do something before knowing they’ll have the resources and support to implement the learning on campus.
Incorporate novelty, games, and fun into each session, especially when the learning feels familiar to your participants.	Read the same content from last year’s slide deck.
Think about your participants’ wellness: Movement, restrooms, snacks, comfortable seating.	Schedule training in spaces with no AC, hard metal chairs, and bad coffee.
Consider accessibility: audio, visual, handouts, sign/spoken language translation, mobility.	Expect neurodivergent and differently-abled participants to figure out their learning on their own.
Offer participants content that is more useful than anything else they could be doing.	Take time away from caring professionals for reasons that don’t matter to them or those they serve.

Create the opposite of every PD you wish you’d never been to.

Although I wish this weren’t true, virtually all of us have participated in trainings that weren’t a good use of a caring professional’s time. This content is where you discover how to create professional development with empathy and warmth, align your learning with purpose and values, and propel each caring professional on your team towards shared goals that resonate deeply with all involved.

Designing Effective Professional Development

AKA: “How to start reading the best exit slips you’ve ever seen!”

Available Online, Self-paced, and In-person.

How to lead the best PD sessions your team has ever experienced.

Create the opposite of every PD you wish you’d never been to.

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