Mindless professional learning produces mindless teaching

Dennis Sparks:

The notes of the lecturer are passed to the notes of the listener - without going through the minds of either. - Mortimer Adler

Mortimer Adler succinctly describes the mindless learning that follows mindless teaching.

Visualize a continuum with that form of teaching and learning at one end. At the other end place the kind of teaching that produces high levels of engagement, meaningful involvement with the subject matter, and the acquisition and exercise of complex cognitive skills. (A good share of the teaching students experience each day falls between those two extremes.)

The professional learning of teachers and administrators can be placed along a similar continuum.

To update Adler's description, at one end of the continuum the PowerPoint slides of the presenter are passed to the tweets of the students without going through the minds of either. At the other end is professional learning with qualities that closely resemble those described above for students--high levels of engagement, meaningful involvement with the subject matter, and the acquisition and exercise of complex cognitive skills

In my experience, the kinds of teaching/learning processes used in professional development have a profound effect on the teaching/learning processes used in the vast majority of' classrooms. Put another way, mindless professional learning produces mindless teaching. And vice versa.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 6, 2013 1:19 AM
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