Telling the PD Travel Story PART 1

Life in general is fast-paced and this feels extremely true in the world of education at the moment. Deadlines are short, patience is low and the need for immediate impact is ever-present. In my role as professional development (PD) lead for a large multi-academy trust I work with lots of leaders who feel a hidden pressure to act quickly to free up both their time and their cognitive capacity. For those leading professional development this can sometimes lead to a short-sighted approach to PD where delivery is the success criteria, and the prologue and epilogue of the PD story are largely ignored.  

In the post below we will explore what the whole story of a PD activity might be and how a closer examination of it might lead to better provision, enactment, and impact.  

What – The CPD lifecycle  

The choices leaders make around the creation of CPD and the hopes they have about its final impact naturally give PD activities a life of their own and one that we should probably be tracking more closely. The intermediary steps on that journey provide useful steppingstones that can be used to hold a mirror up to a leader’s thinking and decision making. 

Why – The challenge of cognitive closure 

A phenomenon that haunts lots of busy people is ‘cognitive closure’ which has been described as the human desire to eliminate ambiguity, arrive at definite conclusions and resist thinking deeply. First described by Kruglanski and Campbell in 1989, cognitive closure allows us to move on from difficult situations and to make decisions but at the same time can lead to biases and blind spots. I feel like cognitive closure could be a key player in the PD travel story and be a contributing factor to the following PD leadership problems: 

• Weak PD selection stimuli (chosen because of ease, popularity, existing expertise, biases) 

• Shallow PD design (a lack mechanisms because of efficiency, limited resources, understanding) 

• Poor PD delivery (abandonment of core T&L principles and ignorance of andragogical factors) 

Weaknesses in these areas caused by limited reflection and deep thinking then naturally lead to limited levels of training transfer, embedding and impact. Sadly, the world is not slowing down and cognitive closure may be something that we need to mitigate rather than eliminate. One way of doing that could be through collaborative activities such as peer review, critical challenge and storytelling. 

Why – The power of storytelling  

Few practical ideas are more obvious or more critical than the need to get perspective in the midst of action (Heifetz & Linksy, 2017) and as leaders we must carve out moments for reflection and sense-checking.  

Reflective practice has a strong research base and popular models by Gibbs, Shön, and Kolb are regularly cited in professional development and continuous learning literature. Reflecting on past actions and their impact is the natural place to start but of equal merit is ‘Anticipatory Reflection’ where the reflection is focused on the future and what might happen.  

Teachers do this naturally when they think about why they are teaching a particular topic, what the desired outcomes of the lesson are, and how they will support students to get there. Leaders do this when they are creating theories of change and working through the logic pathway that takes them from an unwanted reality to a desired future. Being forced to tell these stories can help those involved to gain greater clarity, challenge assumptions, sense-check decisions, mitigate potential issues, and increase their levels of confidence and commitment. The following sections explore the idea that as PD leaders, this storytelling exercise might be useful for us to engage in when we are either planning or evaluating the professional development activities in our schools or trusts.  

How – Moving through the chapters  

This blog post emerged from the truck image above, which itself emerged from a conversation I had with one of my PD leads about a specific piece of PD that they were about to deliver. The conversation centred around what had happened leading up to the PD session and what they were going to do to support staff afterwards. The PD travel story activity as we are now going to call it can be used prior to PD design, post-PD impact, or at any point in between and the following sections will explore in varying levels of detail the different stops along the way.  

Chapter 1 - Stimuli  

The story begins with why the PD is even required. What is driving the need for professional development in this area and why now? This, like every other piece of the PD puzzle, is complex but I am becoming increasingly convinced that almost all ineffective practice has somewhat of a root in ineffective professional development. The model below is an adaptation of Peps Mccrea’s expertise model (2023) which I think speaks clearly to the importance of professional development.   

Reflective Questions 

In the next two chapters we will explore why a lack of mechanisms and an ignorance of andragogy can stop the travel story in its tracks. 

• What typically drives your PD topic selection? 

• How do you balance school and individual PD needs? 

• How do you balance subject, pedagogy, pastoral, leadership PD needs? 

• Is there a strong link between performance and PD selection? 

• Is there a strong link between impact and PD selection?