# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Principles of adult learning and course design

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Incorporate self-directed learning activities in the course design.

# data[].attributes.body
Helps groups look at how humans react to change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Since 1994, the National School Reform Faculty has created and refined more than 200 protocols and activities to use in Critical Friends Group ® communities, classrooms, meetings, and beyond. Each one is designed to help you arrive at a specific desired outcome, efficiently and effectively. If you know the name of the protocol or activity you wish to use, you may find it below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Since 1994, the National School Reform Faculty has created and refined more than 200 protocols and activities to use in Critical Friends Group ® communities, classrooms, meetings, and beyond. Each one is designed to help you arrive at a specific desired outcome, efficiently and effectively.

# data[].attributes.body
The Change Game Directions

# data[].attributes.headline
Ten Tips for Delivering Professional development

# data[].attributes.subject
Ten Tips for Delivering Professional development

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Check out these tips and sage advice on how to guide a team of teachers and facilitate professional development.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Three shifts can bring new vibrancy to adult learning. These shifts can be seen in three general categories: retaining, reflecting, and redistributing.

How Do We Retain Information?

It's so easy to finish an article, end a day of professional development, or walk out of a conference session and slip back into our busy lives without being intentional about retaining the learning. The majority of information that we hope to absorb is lost without our deliberately attempting to make it meaningful, intentionally taking the right notes, and engaging in conversations about the concepts we're learning.

Make it meaningful from the beginning.

It seems obvious that the critical information is retained, but retention goes far beyond this in its complexity. Adult learning works best when it is horizontal learning (attached to something that we're currently working on) as opposed to vertical learning (attached to something that we'll potentially need in the future). Though both are essential, it is important to consciously realize which type of information we're absorbing, so that we can be realistic about the amount of retention that must take place. This doesn't preclude us from valuing both types of information, as it's important to balance what we need now with what we may need in the future, but as learners we should know that the effort needed to retain horizontal versus vertical information demands a different level of commitment.

Take the right notes.

Taking notes is a skill that many educators haven't mastered. Dig back into your paper or electronic notes and see how many unimportant, unnecessary, and unintelligible notes you have. Taking notes should have both a short-term and long-term motive. Note taking can help us focus on a speaker or important conversation, but our notes should also be something that we can return to, something that continues to grow understanding after the information flow on this topic has ended. Many educators are rethinking their note-taking strategies. They're deciding whether electronic note taking is effective beyond its purpose of reducing paper usage; looking at the concept of sketchnoting to see if non-linguistic representations in their notes allow for greater retention; or considering whether Google Keep, Evernote, or another note-taking app can add to their retention. Taking notes supports greater retention, and taking great notes requires a fresh intentionality in today's high information flow rate.

Share a conversation.

Retaining information is a personal endeavor, but at times it must include others to truly maximize the knowledge gained. These are the conversations where ideas are strung together, meaning is made of information that didn't fully make sense, and concepts are synthesized and reconsidered. In the past, the opportunity for these conversations usually came immediately after reading a chapter, watching a video, or hearing a lecture. Educators have added many asynchronous opportunities for retention, such as online conversations with their PLN, themed Twitter chats, and now longer-form discourse using Voxer. Whatever your strategy, processing your learning through conversation will bolster your retention of essential information.

How Do We Create Space and Time for Reflection?

Cementing learning takes reflection. Long-term memory and the ability to organize and access information at a later time requires making sense of the information that you're retaining shortly after you acquire it. This step is often the Achilles Heel of adult learning. Even when educators take notes or talk to others, it requires an intentional reflective practice to make the learning rich and real. Have you ever had the experience of remembering reading or hearing about something without remembering the details? This can result from not spending the necessary time reflecting.

Adjust a current schema.

New information needs to shift thinking, whether through change, growth, or reinforcing ideas, but unless new information makes us think differently, it will most likely be pushed aside. When we leave a conference session saying things like, "I've never thought about it like that," we're reflecting on the information and beginning to adjust our current schema. Be intentional about how information changes your thinking. Sometimes, tangential learning outside of the field can shift our thinking about education, so take time to reflect on what new information is doing to the old ways of thinking.

Ask what legacy systems are barriers to progress.

The excitement of new learning can be addictive. For many adult learners, that's why they loved school and struggle to understand why some kids aren't always motivated to learn. New learning often falls flat before it is implemented or scaled because of systemic or attitudinal barriers. For learning to make a difference, learners must also reflect on the barriers to success. These barriers shouldn't become boulders in the journey forward. They should be mixed into the new learning, so that realistic solutions can be crafted.

Have a quality space for synthesizing ideas.

The noise of our car, house, community, and workplace can make reflection challenging. Reflection can require banter and conversation, but it can also require separation, silence, and a slowing of life. Where is this place for you? Is it in the morning before anyone rises or during a evening walk? Is it in the shower or the quiet of your office after the day's energy has passed? Quality reflection comes in these moments when new learning makes new sense and new ideas become new actions.

How Do We Share or Redistribute the Information?

Acquiring ideas, resources, and materials, and then deeply embedding them into personal practice is a huge part of professional growth. But in an age when collaboration, sharing, and transparency are parts of excellent education, we must not only retain and reflect, but share or redistribute that knowledge. We can't afford a system that traps wisdom at a time when everyone needs the best stuff every day for every kid.

Increase the frequency of sharing with your PLN.

Make a habit of redistributing ideas, materials, and resources by leaning into the concept that our role in education extends beyond our individual classrooms, buildings, and districts. As you dial into the needs of your network, ask yourself: What ideas could bolster their work? What resources could help their latest issues? What materials could support their culture? Through these questions, redistribution of learning blossoms while personal learning deepens.

Be systemic about sharing.

Daily routine can shape and support learning habits. For redistribution to flourish, it means a daily commitment to support the learning of others. Does this mean tweeting out five resources each day, a weekly e-mail to local colleagues, joining a weekly online chat to share your latest ideas and resources, or blogging more frequently? The answer is yes and no. Yes, these are great ways to redistribute information. No, the habit of sharing has to be personal, so some of these may not be right for you.

Don't assume that people already have the information.

It's an easy mistake to believe that everyone already knows something that you have learned. This is rarely the case. Excellent adult learners who think about retaining, reflecting, and redistributing are almost always ahead of the learning curve. Your efforts to share will enrich the learning ecosystem. You'll remove friction from the system and support the mingling of ideas necessary for change. The smallest chunk of information can spark a transformation. The slightest nudge can be the catalyst for change.

A deeper level of professional learning is needed for the schools of the future to emerge at a pace that kids and communities deserve. With a greater focus on retaining information, reflecting more frequently on learning, and redistributing the new knowledge to others, excellence can scale throughout the educational ecosystem.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
21st-Century PD: Retention, Reflection, and Redistribution of Knowledge | Edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Three shifts can bring new vibrancy to adult learning. These shifts can be seen in three general categories: retaining, reflecting, and redistributing. It's so easy to finish an article, end a day of professional development, or walk out of a conference session and slip back into our busy lives without being intentional about retaining the learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
'Tis the season of professional development for many of us who work in schools. While PD can be meaningful, sometimes the experience feels like we were the unwilling recipients of an unpleasant procedure -- we were professionally developed; our descriptions employ the same tone, syntax, and non-verbal language as when describing a colonoscopy.

Let me digress for a moment. For many years, I've been trying to learn to bake bread. At first, I roughly followed a recipe, using whatever stale ingredients I had in the cupboard. The results were disastrous -- the yeast didn't foam, the bread didn't rise, the center was gooey, and the outside rock hard. I've now accepted that there's a science to making bread: the yeast can't be two years old, the water must be 110-115 degrees for the yeast to proof, the house needs to be warm, the measurements need to be exact, and so on. I doubt that any baker would argue with this fact because if you don't adhere to the science, you don't get bread.

This was what I mulled over as I sat through three days of excruciating professional development because the science behind the PD I was subjected to was all wrong. The result will be thrown in the compost.

In this day and age, there is so much information available about how adults learn that I'm shocked that professional development can still feel like a colonoscopy. In the paranoid moments when I indulge in conspiracy thinking, I wonder if well-intentioned presenters know about adult learning, but choose to dismiss that knowledge. Otherwise, how could they do what they're doing to another human being?

The Science

I like to know about the science behind things -- it helps me make sense of a phenomena and helps me get the loaf I want. In the past few decades, brain scientists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, and others have delivered a rich set of data about how adults learn. As an instructional coach, whether I'm working individually with teachers or principals, or designing and facilitating PD, applying this information is essential to me.

Here's a brief summary of what we know about how adults learn. I offer this to those who have been subjected to any colonoscopy-like PD recently and are trying to make sense of why it felt so unpleasant -- and as a reminder to those who are leading professional development. I have much of this information typed up and posted in my office, lest I forget.

#1. The learning experience has to feel good. When we feel positive about a situation, our bodies release endorphins, which make us feel good and open to learning, and dopamine, which stimulates the pre-frontal cortex and keeps us attentive and likely to remember the learning.

I'm starting with this scientific fact as a reminder and validation that learning must feel good to adults (as well as kids). Professional development that begins with a message of, "You teachers have failed your kids, you're contributing to the premature deaths of our children, let us teach you the right way to do this job," isn't going to work. Negative feelings (including feeling like you've been forced to attend a PD) cause the hormone cortisol to enter the blood stream. This catapults the brain into survival mode, and shifts the brain's attention away from learning and into dealing with stress. Instead of learning, the brain remembers the pressure and registers PD as unpleasant.

This scientific fact -- that the learning has to feel good -- doesn't mean that we all need to sit in a circle and sing "Kumbaya" all day. There are many ways in which PD can be structured so that participants feel good, learn something, and get things done.

Related to this first fact, the following are also true of adult learners:

#2. Adults want to be the origin of our own learning. They should therefore have some control over the what, who, how, why, when, and where of the learning.

#3. Adults will commit to learning when we believe that the objectives are realistic and important for our personal and professional needs. We need to see that what we learn through professional development is applicable to our day-to-day activities and problems. Presenters need to know who's in the room and what's on our plates, and if they don't know, they need to ask.

#4. Adults need direct, concrete experiences for applying what we have learned to our work. We can't just be passive subjects into which theories are poured (just like kids).

#5. Adult learners come to the learning process with a self-direction. Also, they arrive with a wide range of previous experiences, knowledge, interests, and competencies. And this last fact is what I appreciate about working with adults. While there are similarities between how kids learn and how grown-ups learn, there are notable differences. I've heard some PD presenters decry the challenges: "Kids are so much easier to teach! They're so much more fun!" While that might be true in some respects, I'd suggest that those people consider only teaching children if that's how they feel.

I appreciate what adult learners bring to the table. I enjoy the challenges and the rewards make the work worth it. And I also adhere to the science of adult learning. For more information on this topic, this article is a great place to start.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Science Behind Adult Learning | Edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
'Tis the season of professional development for many of us who work in schools. While PD can be meaningful, sometimes the experience feels like we were the unwilling recipients of an unpleasant procedure -- we were professionally developed; our descriptions employ the same tone, syntax, and non-verbal language as when describing a colonoscopy.