I’m in the midst of planning massive set of upcoming workshops, institutes and trainings. I love designing these things, thinking through the flow of activities, the structures to guide people deep into the work, and the opportunities to model new ways of learning and doing. It takes me between one to two hours to plan for every hour of PD I facilitate -- yes, it takes a lot of time and a lot of mental energy.
One tool I’ve developed to help me is this: Guidelines for Designing PD.docx I created this for myself--it’s checklisty sort of. But as I was reviewing it, I thought that some of you might also find it helpful. So here it is!
This thing is founded on the principles of adult learning and incorporates knowledge on how our brains learn best. There’s lots of research, theory and science behind the suggestions, trust me on that, although I’m not going to explain it all now. Some day...
In the meantime, hope this tool is helpful! And also, if you didn’t see this -- 10 Tips for Delivering Awesome Professional Development -- it might also be helpful.