Would Professional Development Be Better as a Makerspace?

Earlier this month, a study from the non-profit organization TNTP revealed that teacher professional development programs are largely ineffective, despite the funding and resources being funneled into them. 

"School systems are failing to help teachers understand how they need to improve — or even that they need to improve at all. For example, less than half of all surveyed teachers agreed that they have weaknesses in their instruction," the organization's statement said.

Educator John Spencer has an idea that he said would reinvigorate professional development in teaching — and he's taking a page from a trend that is growing in popularity among students, too: the makerspace.

"What if teachers designed things? What if they created something real and tangible? What if they went through the design thinking cycle?"

According to Spencer, creativity develops teacher leaders; once they define themselves as makers by experiencing project-based learning, he says, they become stronger educators.

Here's a few reasons why including makerspaces in professional development is a good idea:

1. It increases collaboration between teachers. Having teachers learn through collaborating on projects increases the likelihood that they will collaborate again in the future. A study revealed this year indicated that collaboration with colleagues increases teacher success, so any PD opportunity to increase this collaboration is a good thing. 

2. Professional development makerspaces also give the educator an opportunity to learn through doing. Being active in learning helps teachers actively learn new skills and achieve goals versus being uninspired by the routine run-of-the-mill PD. "Learning by doing" has proven to be effective, and PD makerspaces would be the epitome of this. 

3. PD makerspaces would also help teachers get a grasp on an increasingly popular and proven-to-be effective learning model: project-based learning. Project-based learning (PBL)revolves around concrete goals, and many PD programs are currently being criticized for not holding educators to identifiable sets of goals. PBL helps educators do the aforementioned things: collaborate and learn through doing, and also familiarizes them with a learning style that many are touting as a needed technique in the classroom. 

Watch the video below to learn more about how professional development makerspaces via John Spencer's vision would work:

Compiled by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor