Articolo di Kate Bellanca: Professional Learning Experiences: there is no " quick fix"

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pubblico volentieri il presente articolo scritto dalla collega Kate Bellanca di Chicago, Formatrice esperta nel metodo Feuerstein e collaboratrice del Feuerstein institute da diversi anni.

May 27, 2014, Volume 1, Issue 4, No. 14
Kathleen Bellanca is the CEO of International Renewal Institute, the chief authorized provider of FIE materials and school and teacher development programs in the United States and Canada.
Driving Question: How Do We Advance Students' Critical Thinking Through Professional Development?
As professional development providers, we need to help our teachers develop the abilities we all know they have. This is especially important when it comes to teachers abilities and capability to teach students to think critically, collaborate, communicate, and problem solve.

The professional development of our teachers also is one of the most important areas to address in today's educational system. With the latest educational reforms via the Common Core, teachers are being bombarded with in-services consisting of one or two-day lectures before taking the raw information back to the classroom. How do we know if they have learned anything? How do we know that the implementation is how it was designed? Just as we expect our students to perform at the highest level, we should expect the same from our teachers...and prepare them to do so well.
Changing how we conduct professional development has to be the first way to create change in our students' continual learning experiences. Deep change, the type needed for the Common Core—4C marriage, only happens with dedication, hard work, and continuous systematic support. It doesn't happen with band aides or quick fixes overnight. With the Common Core and thinking, there is no such thing as a "quick fix". It's not enough just to teach our teachers new ways of addressing content when they also need strategies for eliciting students' thought processes. By teaching teachers the cognitive processes, we prepare them to teach students to ask questions and to understand what and why they are learning. This is no easy feat.
What is a new vision for professional development?
Through the work of Reuven Feuerstein's theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and his teaching methodologies of Mediated Learning Experience, our team has adjusted the idea of how we teach teachers. In order to ready teachers to work with students we have them "learn from doing". This unique approach not only is geared to changing the teachers practice in the classroom, but also to changes in their mindset—their beliefs about the students' capabilities to think and learn.
Learning by Doing
Reuven Feuerstein distinguishes between "direct learning" and "mediated learning" as a way of teaching. Direct learning is a "sit and get" approach. Mediated learning is rooted in a thoughtful interaction between the student and the teacher. He teaches that mediated learning is at the heart of change – structural change. As a result, mediated learning experiences are a learning-by-doing approach that focuses on correcting or developing critical thinking and problem solving skills. By working together with the teachers' interactions and asking deeper questions, students learn from their errors and develop strategies to overcome underdeveloped cognitive skills.

The layout of professional development uses the same ideology—lecture replaced by an interactive focus on the process for learning. The interaction must have a focus on critical thinking and problem solving – not content. As part of the initial face-to-face professional interaction, we enable teachers to learn, understand, and implement the elicitation of specific thinking skills or what Feuerstein calls "cognitive functions" for themselves and for their students.

By readying teachers to think about their own thinking they can then pass these functions to their students. When teachers understand what "analyzing" really means (to separate into constituent parts or elements) they can teach their students, thus giving students the verbal tools for precise communication of what and how they have learned.
The International Renewal Institute's initial professional development design is laid out to accomplish these objectives:

• Improve teachers' ability to advance students' academic progress and close the achievement gap by enhancing general problem solving skills and bridging improved thinking effectiveness into specific content area applications across the curriculum.
• Enable educators to develop their students' cognitive functions by applying more efficient and effective thinking and problem solving skills to improve schoolwork and daily living skills.
• Teach teachers to identify, mediate, and strengthen students' key underdeveloped cognitive functions.

Providing Support and Assistance
Learning about the Feuerstein method and his applied methods is the only the first part of our Professional Development continuum. It is not enough just to teach teachers these strategies for producing change in their students thinking capabilities. As with Common Core introductions, the same question comes up. "How do we know if they got it?"

In order for a full-blown implementation in classrooms, what the school leaders do to support the teachers' practice is essential. What does that mean? It's not just the teachers; it's the leadership too. Professional development for the administration is also important. They must be fully involved, not just half way, but fully involved. Additionally, on-site visits throughout the year by the consultant are critical. The consultant comes into classroom throughout the year to ensure the goals, communication, and coordination for a shaping modifiable environment are met.

Teachers, teacher leaders, principals, and other personnel meet with the visiting consultant five times throughout the school year. The consultant visits classrooms, provides feedback, oversees and reviews the teachers' progress of classroom implementation, solves problems that require school/district decision making, coordinates services, guides evaluation associated with the project and develops sustainability plan and procedures.

Over at least a three-year implementation process, we see both change in the teaching and the learning. The classroom and the school climate change. They not only become better teachers, but also become more collaborative with each other and build professional learning communities for solving problems and encouraging each other to better serve their students.