Today was the second day of PD (professional development) that I attended at my school that was offered on a voluntary basis. My school does this every year and I appreciate it. Most years, they give us three days, but money is tight so we had two this year. I wanted to briefly acknowledge something that I saw that I have been wanting to see for years.

First, the concept of direct instruction was brought up as a necessary component of deep learning and critical thinking. In the past, the emphasis was always on the higher order thinking skills without any discussion of the critical importance of knowing to that process. This made me very happy to see.

Related to that was the inclusion of research by Australian educator John Hattie, whose work is based on sharing meta-data on the efficacy of teaching strategies. Hattie’s research has been known in education circles for at least a decade, but today was the first real sharing of his ideas and research. This also made me very happy to see.

Nothing more to add excpept that I hope this positive element of my initial PD this year bodes well for my 29th year as a professional in the classroom.