How to Prioritize Professional Learning When There Isn’t Enough Time

Time.

There isn’t enough of it to do everything a teacher, instructional coach, or administrator needs to do on a daily basis.

This is why professional learning often feels like a chore. It seems like an extra weight thrown on top of all the other responsibilities and roles we have to worry about.

This isn’t just in education. It is in most workplaces. All around the country I’ve seen this be the case when working with schools, institutions, non-profits, and large companies. Professional learning often takes a backseat to the myriad of other things on our plates.

Yet, when you ask folks what is going to help them move forward in their role, career, or situation — the answer is often time to learn. Time to discuss. Time to collaborate. Time to create.

So, how can we prioritize learning (and unlearning as I wrote about in the previous article) when we know it is important but is not often a “necessity” in our everyday roles and responsibilities?

Well, we can force folks to go-to professional learning…or we can create professional learning experiences that are flexible and meaningful and relevant.

Here are four ways you can keep professional learning a priority in the midst of the everything going on:

1. FOCUS ON THE SHARED CONVERSATION

I taught with Jen Smith and Anthony Gabriele for five years in MS and HS. Our conversations centered around the challenges our students faced, and the amazing work many of our students would do after being challenged and pushed (maybe a little more than they had wanted to be). In the midst of all the negativity that can float around a school sometimes, it was often these conversations with colleagues that raised me up and brought me back to the real reason we teach.

Tip To Make It Happen: Schedule time for conversations. These are informal meetups where teachers can discuss anything on their plates. The best way to do this is to have it be sometimes within a department and/or grade level, and other times have it be a mixed group of various departments/subjects/grades. More informal and non-scheduled conversations will come out of these moments (as they already do).

2. FOCUS ON SHARED PRACTICES

I remember during one of our “Best Practices” in services where teachers could facilitate and choose which sessions they wanted to attend, I was speaking about the 20% time project in my class. As I spoke about the lack of intrinsic motivation of my class, so many teachers resonated with this issue. Although my solution of giving 20% class time to work on a passion project seemed a bit radical, we all had the same shared struggle. It’s hard to motivate students who aren’t necessarily motivated by anything school can offer them (grades, rewards, etc). This understanding brings teachers together and makes learning with each other meaningful and relevant.

Tip To Make It Happen: Teachers often learn best from other teachers. We ran a shared practices symposium every year where teachers would sign-up to present (and get a stipend), and sign-up for the sessions that they wanted to attend. Sharing practices leads to all kinds of interactions that go beyond the typical sit-and-get. Real conversations and collaborations pop up out of these sessions all the time.

3. MAKE IT MEANINGFUL AND RELEVANT

One of the first sessions I ever lead as a teacher during a district in-service was on creating podcasts with your students. I was a second-year teacher, and a bit nervous to share this project and information with all of the teachers I looked up to in our school. But the session went so well because I could talk the same language and reference communal experiences that would happen to all of us. For example, I shared how one student truly read the book and knew the information, but froze up in front of the class. The podcast allowed all students to refine their message and have the class learn from them regardless of their public speaking issues. Every teacher in that room had dealt with a similar situation, and our communal understanding made it easy to engage in deep learning that would matter in a classroom.

Tip To Make It Happen: Workshops need to be relevant. They can’t just be pie in the sky or marshmallows and toothpicks, because that is when people feel like their time is being wasted. When I run design sprints or workshops with teachers or school leaders we focus on solving real problems and having time to build out those solutions. People care because the work matters and isn’t hypothetical - it’s actionable.

4. MAKE IT FUN AND MEMORABLE

Steve Mogg is one of the best teachers I know. We coached and taught together for seven years. He’s also hilarious. So when Steve ran a session on Twitter for teachers in our district, people signed up expecting to have a good time. And they did. But they also learned a lot along the way. Sometimes we take “professional development” too seriously and forget that learning can and should be fun, especially when it is with our colleagues. Memorable PD is one of the best ways to uplift a staff and give them an awesome learning experience at the same time.

Tip To Make It Happen: We don’t always have to “dive into the standards” when we are doing PD. Sometimes, workshops and sessions should be focused on the peripheral tools and applications that we are going to use. Other times we can use mash-up scenarios to get folks thinking across departments and grade levels. These make the learning fun, and memorable. That is what it’s all about!

What are some ways you make workshops and PD matter in your organization?