Let’s set the scene. You are in a professional learning setting, and you look around and see that some of your colleagues are engaged, but also noticed that some are not. They have open laptops and are working away on something completely different or are otherwise disengaged. 

As a participant, maybe you are indifferent to what others do, or maybe you feel like they are on to something and take out your own laptop. It’s also possible that you feel uncomfortable in how you feel it represents your staff. I can promise you that as a presenter, it doesn’t feel the best to look out and see people not looking up or engaging with the activities. It’s very similar to teaching a lesson when students are off-task, which can be frustrating. 

We are all respectful colleagues of one another but the scene described has probably played out more than once in your career. So why does this happen? 

To start, I think that we don’t always help ourselves when we say things like “this is nothing new” or “you are already doing this” as it signals us to tune out. It’s usually said to validate current experiences and to soften the lead in, but I think more often the impact of this is that people think “if I am already doing this, then why should I listen?” This can be a dangerous mindset if you are trying to move change since those phrases promote doing more of the same. 

Related to this is that many of the ideas and initiatives often feel very similar and recycled. This is likely due to a failed implementation or from practitioners not understanding the nuance in the differences. As an example, let’s look at Differentiated Instruction (DI) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The similarities of these include: supporting diverse learners, intentionally designed lessons, promoting equity and inclusion and high expectations for all students. The difference lies in the nuance of approach. DI is a downstream approach that adapts to the needs you have, whereas UDL is about removing barriers in a more upstream approach. There are more differences but this was just meant to give an idea of things that could look similar from the surface. And for those who felt it didn’t work in one incarnation, it’s not too far a leap to think that it will not work in this one either.

We have also had poorly designed PL that does not model best practices for adult learning, nor model the concepts being taught. I once was in a PL about the importance of asking questions where the presenters said they weren’t taking questions! Similarly to this is a Sit and Get style of professional learning session about the importance of moving away from Sit and Get. This makes it difficult to engage with as it isn’t designed with engagement in mind, but rather, with transference of information.

Depending on the presenter it can also be a difficult battle to get buy-in from participants if they feel they have a different lived experience. Many educators feel that if someone isn’t in a classroom, or in their particular school, they can’t fully appreciate their situation and may be dismissed out of hand. This is unfortunate, but may have some merit. With society and schools changing as rapidly as they are, it does become easy to lose touch with some of the day-to-day concerns associated with the modern classroom. Some professional development is big on theory but light on details about making it work in these classrooms so the criticism is valid. However, I do think that dismissing ideas out of hand because of the particular messenger is short sighted in that many of the ideas can be adapted to your particular situation and classroom.

This leads me into my final piece in that some may feel that professional learning isn’t specifically tailored to them and so is not worthwhile. A session on UDL for example may not be specifically for music teachers, but it’s up to the music teachers as a content expert to apply the learning to their subject area. Participants have a responsibility to do the adaptations for themselves rather than simply rely on someone to do it for them.

There are times when what looks like disengagement also isn’t. Like every other walk of life we have all kinds of people with all kinds of idiosyncrasies. For myself, I struggle with focus at times, especially in any sort of Sit and Get situation. As such, using my phone or a fidget helps me to occupy myself enough to focus. However, by all appearances I definitely don’t seem as engaged as I should be. While I am working on it, I do still slip and actively work on it for settings exactly like this. Presenters should be mindful of this, while participants also need to be mindful of how their behaviour may be received, even if there is nothing disrespectful intended.