I just survived another wasted two days of what passes for "Professional Development" at my school.
Thursday session 1: Toxic positivity 101. This is not to warn us of the perils of toxic positivity, but to encourage us to gaslight each other. Session started with that classic red-flag warning, "Studies show that ..." without bothering to cite any study.
Session 2: Visioning exercise. I am sorry, but I literally have absolutely no recall of what we did during this session. Sessions are named in ways which are not helpful in remembering content. This may have been the session where our principal described Hattie's work as "doing a bunch of math" on research to show that an "effect size" of 0.4 is the minimum for one year's growth. There was no mention that the "bunch of math" which underlies much of Hattie's work is statistically invalid. I often mentally check out when material depends on belief in Hattie.
Session 3: Dictate to teachers how school trips (towards the end of the school year) will be handled.
Session 4: How to write letters of recommendation. Geared exclusively to Gr 11 and 12 teachers, but all teachers must attend.
Session 5: For advisory teachers, and I was excused, as I do not teach an advisory.
Session 6: Read through the IB evaluation received, note the areas that were highlighted for improvement, and explain to us that the school won't really address those areas despite giving lip service to the changes.
Friday session 1: Calisthenics.
Session 2: Read and summarize an article of entry-level undergrad educational psychology. I would have expected anyone who is a certified teacher had already read this material.
Session 3: Share "Best Practices." Require everybody to write up a "best practice" and then walk around reading what everybody has written. This session used the vocabulary word "plenary" in a way I had never heard before. That is, in this session "plenary" means a summary of what happened during the previous period.
Session 4: Follow up on school trips. Staff are to decide what activities students will engage in on school trip, based on student survey results that are unrelated to school trip activities. Note that during this session the facilitator sat reading their email.
Session 5: So-called Pub Quiz about social studies topics and movie titles.
