Professional Development - Head Start - U.S. Department of Health ...

Sara goes to a great training and
gathers lots of really good ideas that
she wants to use immediately! She is
excited because one idea directly
addresses something she has been
struggling with for a while. This
approach seems perfect! On Monday
morning, Sara starts using the new
approach. She does it exactly the way
it was discussed during training. All
goes well for the next couple of days.
Then she hits a glitch. They did not
discuss this problem in training! Sara
tries another way. That doesn’t work
either. She KNOWS that the trainer
would have the answer if only she
had her e-mail address and the nerve
to contact her and ask her a question.
Instead, she tries a few more times,
continues to struggle, wishes someone
else had gone to the training with her,
and then goes back to her old way of
doing it. At least it’s familiar!
It is widely recognized that we
adults learn best when we are able to
apply what we are learning in the
context in which we will use the new
information (Wlodkowski, 2003). In
order to be an excellent teacher,
supervisor, or administrator, one
needs to develop a great many skills,
each of which develops over time,
after a great deal of practice and
ongoing feedback and support from
others. Chess is a complicated game
but it only has 50,000 possible
moves—far fewer possibilities than
can occur in a single minute in any
Audiences/Methods
BY J OANNE K NAPP-PHILO
MAKE TRAINING PLANS SUCCESSFUL
INCORPORATE FOLLOW-UP, SUPPORT, AND PRACTICE!
classroom, staff meeting, or home
visit! Yet master chess players invest
between 50,000 – 100,000 hours of
practice with feedback in order to
become expert in the 50,000 chess
patterns (Chase & Simon, 1973;
Simon & Chase, 1972). Like chess
players, early childhood educators
need a mindset and intentional system
that assure follow-up and ongoing
skill building.
Teachers need to practice new
teaching techniques in the classroom
and modify their approach in
response to children’s responses, as
well as feedback from colleagues,
mentors, or supervisors who can see
exactly what the teacher is doing
rather than what s/he is trying to do.
Supervisors and administrators need
ongoing feedback about new supervision
approaches and techniques to
assure that what they are intending is
as effective as it can be. Sara met
challenges she did not learn about
during her initial training and she
needed ongoing input and support in
order to incorporate the new ideas
into her work.
Fountas et al. (2000) found that
teachers need concrete, practical suggestions
from change agents in order
to make changes. Moffet (2000)
clearly showed that innovations were
successful only when practitioners
received adequate, high-quality assistance
when they went back into their
classrooms. Indeed, the amount and
quality of the follow-up support
determined whether an innovation
flourished or died after the training
was complete. Both SpecialQuest and
StoryQUEST found that programs
who participated actively in follow-up
made substantially more progress
than did teams that did not embrace
follow-up (Knapp-Philo, 2002;
StoryQUEST Final Report, 2004).
Once we accept that new learning
needs to be connected to a process of
ongoing learning and follow-up, we
must then think and plan differently.
Training becomes the first step
toward incorporating new strategies
and techniques into the work. But,
three more steps remain. The work of
learning to master a new skill is just
beginning. The second step is practicing
and receiving feedback and support
to develop new skills. This is
where Sara got lost—she had no follow-up
and no way to get feedback or
to have her questions answered. The
third step involves ongoing thinking
and planning about how to continue
to improve and refine the new skill.
Finally, the fourth step moves to creating
new ways to use the strategy or
technique. The hallmark of mastering
a skill is being able to use it in innovative
and unique ways. This is the
goal of professional development—to
support staff to become highly
accomplished and skilled, which takes
time, practice, follow-up and feedback,
and ongoing effort.
Head Start Bulletin 35