Hacking Education Change For The Professional Development Market
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The professional development (PD) market in K-12 education is big business, with reports placing its value at $18 billion annually. PD for educators is a clear need and one that supports effective instruction and positive student outcomes, but with this amount of money on the line, itâs fair to ask the question, âCould it be spent more wisely?â
PD is vital to the success of a school district, not only for teacher effectiveness but also retention, but traditional models havenât delivered consistent success. Often, professional learning is largely left up to the teachers themselves, and school or district-sponsored professional learning often limited to an expert flown in for a day to speak in front of a large group. Even online learning, which has made ongoing, embedded learning more accessible, is often cost-prohibitive to the individual teacher.
In todayâs world of direct-to-consumer delivery mechanisms, the education world has been slow to open itself to new and atypical visionary solutions. Fortunately, that is changing.
Publishing That Keeps The PD Participantsâ Needs In Mind
For almost 20 years, Mark Barnes was an English teacher at South Euclid-Lyndhurst City Schools outside Cleveland, Ohio. When a co-worker suggested he share his unique teaching journey in a book, he decided to go for it. His book hit on ideas that resonated with educators and it found an interested audience. As did his next. After his fifth book with the traditional publishers, the well-known âgiantsâ of education publishing, he made the decision to publish for himself. His next titles included Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes For Every School and Hacking Leadership: 10 Ways Great Leaders Inspire Learning That Teachers, Students, and Parents Love, the books that kicked off the still-thriving Hack Learning series.
The market for educator professional development books is controlled by a handful of mega-publishers. It can be tough for an independent publisher to make a dent. âWhen we started envisioning the book Hacking Education as part of the Hack Learning Series, I decided the best way to go was to create my own publishing company,â he said.
Showing a difference approach than the âlegacyâ publishers, Barnes reaches the education market in a variety of traditional and nontraditional ways, including not only his teacher-friendly books, but also through content he produces via podcasts, speaking engagements at conferences, blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and edCamps. His start-up size and orientation toward new media keeps him nimble and allows him to change directions quickly.
âIn the professional development world, educators seek learning in many places,â said Barnes. âUnlike the larger, traditional publishers, our marketing budget is small. We must be intentional about how and where we spend money, so we use as many free channels as possible. Plus, even though itâs not face-to-face, meeting people in Facebook groups and Twitter chats has a personal feel and helps us connect and build an audience dedicated to our mission.â
âI knew from 23 years as a teacher that the decision-makers are driven by politics and the bureaucracy. Teachers hate this, so I felt confident that most would respond well to our formula, which includes practical solutions that our authors have been using for years but most educators have overlooked because they may be too obvious,â he adds.
According to Barnes, there is a simple truth about professional learning. âYou are likely to learn more from the right book, one Twitter chat, a half-day Edcamp or a single podcast episode than youâll learn in a whole year of district-driven professional development,â he states. Educators need to drive their own learning.
âShow me a room with 300 people and one keynote speaker, and Iâll show you hundreds of people grading papers, writing lesson plans or reading Facebook posts. Disruptive PD engages audiences and includes them in the learningâeven inviting them to guide how the day moves forward. We need a lot more of this.â
Expanding The User Experience In Professional Development
The Learning Counsel was founded in 2014 by LeiLani Cauthen after she began writing about the confusion caused by a torrent of new apps and programs flooding the education market. Cauthen put together a small team to help produce live discussions on the transition from textbooks to digital curriculum. At that time, districts were being overwhelmed by the transition and Cauthenâs live discussions began to gain traction. Soon, these turned into even larger on-site events and a new model for professional learning began to take shape, birthing a series of special reports, national research and a new social media site called Knowstory, just for education, with professional learning groups on school redesign, user experience, learning gaming and more.
The Learning Counsel now produces 30 live events in U.S. cities each year. The events have panel discussions featuring nearby state and district-level experts, as well as breakout sessions and workshops. Key sponsoring vendors are selected to attend and invited to speak and then answer questions for the districts in an intimate one-on-one setting.
School districts are also recognizing the need to personalize while expanding the user experience as they implement professional development efforts. With a minimum of 70% of a school districtâs budget allocated toward personnel, providing appropriate opportunities is essential to student improving outcomes. Dr. S. Dallas Dance, managing partner of Infinite Solutions Enterprises and former superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland, works with organizations in all industries, including education, to help them recognize the value of solving problems through people and strategy. According to Dance, âEducators have taken the reins of personalized learning for students to new levels and while implementation varies based on leadership, every student experience must be about them. This also has to be the case for our teachers, staff, and support personnel. The one-size-fits-all approach does not work in the classroom for student learners and surely doesnât work outside of the classroom for adult learners either."
Market Pressures And The Demand For Digital Learning
According to Cauthen, âThis is a time of intense change for public education. School districts are experiencing pressure from all sides to modernize their delivery systems. More and more families are demanding a digital learning experience that will prepare their children for a changing economy. Increasingly, they are opting for alternative education for their children, including private schools, charter schools, homeschooling, unschooling and private online education companies. School districts are being asked to compete with these options, but itâs not a simple change.â
âDistricts are already seeing massive declines in enrollment, some as high as 30%. We bring together experts from every corner of the country to share which technologies are working and how to transform their districts into modern centers of learning. And itâs working.â
Barnes and Cauthen are disruptors bringing new direction to educator professional development. Together they represent a small but growing faction of the PD market; a segment that is positioned for success in the 21st century model of content creation and delivery. As business models, their efforts could very well act as harbingers to changeârepresenting a new focus that allows educators to decide how they want to learn and adapt.
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The professional development (PD) market in K-12 education is big business, with reports placing its value at $18 billion annually. PD for educators is a clear need and one that supports effective instruction and positive student outcomes, but with this amount of money on the line, itâs fair to ask the question, âCould it be spent more wisely?â
PD is vital to the success of a school district, not only for teacher effectiveness but also retention, but traditional models havenât delivered consistent success. Often, professional learning is largely left up to the teachers themselves, and school or district-sponsored professional learning often limited to an expert flown in for a day to speak in front of a large group. Even online learning, which has made ongoing, embedded learning more accessible, is often cost-prohibitive to the individual teacher.
In todayâs world of direct-to-consumer delivery mechanisms, the education world has been slow to open itself to new and atypical visionary solutions. Fortunately, that is changing.
Publishing That Keeps The PD Participantsâ Needs In Mind
For almost 20 years, Mark Barnes was an English teacher at South Euclid-Lyndhurst City Schools outside Cleveland, Ohio. When a co-worker suggested he share his unique teaching journey in a book, he decided to go for it. His book hit on ideas that resonated with educators and it found an interested audience. As did his next. After his fifth book with the traditional publishers, the well-known âgiantsâ of education publishing, he made the decision to publish for himself. His next titles included Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes For Every School and Hacking Leadership: 10 Ways Great Leaders Inspire Learning That Teachers, Students, and Parents Love, the books that kicked off the still-thriving Hack Learning series.
The market for educator professional development books is controlled by a handful of mega-publishers. It can be tough for an independent publisher to make a dent. âWhen we started envisioning the book Hacking Education as part of the Hack Learning Series, I decided the best way to go was to create my own publishing company,â he said.
Showing a difference approach than the âlegacyâ publishers, Barnes reaches the education market in a variety of traditional and nontraditional ways, including not only his teacher-friendly books, but also through content he produces via podcasts, speaking engagements at conferences, blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and edCamps. His start-up size and orientation toward new media keeps him nimble and allows him to change directions quickly.
âIn the professional development world, educators seek learning in many places,â said Barnes. âUnlike the larger, traditional publishers, our marketing budget is small. We must be intentional about how and where we spend money, so we use as many free channels as possible. Plus, even though itâs not face-to-face, meeting people in Facebook groups and Twitter chats has a personal feel and helps us connect and build an audience dedicated to our mission.â
âI knew from 23 years as a teacher that the decision-makers are driven by politics and the bureaucracy. Teachers hate this, so I felt confident that most would respond well to our formula, which includes practical solutions that our authors have been using for years but most educators have overlooked because they may be too obvious,â he adds.
According to Barnes, there is a simple truth about professional learning. âYou are likely to learn more from the right book, one Twitter chat, a half-day Edcamp or a single podcast episode than youâll learn in a whole year of district-driven professional development,â he states. Educators need to drive their own learning.
âShow me a room with 300 people and one keynote speaker, and Iâll show you hundreds of people grading papers, writing lesson plans or reading Facebook posts. Disruptive PD engages audiences and includes them in the learningâeven inviting them to guide how the day moves forward. We need a lot more of this.â
Expanding The User Experience In Professional Development
The Learning Counsel was founded in 2014 by LeiLani Cauthen after she began writing about the confusion caused by a torrent of new apps and programs flooding the education market. Cauthen put together a small team to help produce live discussions on the transition from textbooks to digital curriculum. At that time, districts were being overwhelmed by the transition and Cauthenâs live discussions began to gain traction. Soon, these turned into even larger on-site events and a new model for professional learning began to take shape, birthing a series of special reports, national research and a new social media site called Knowstory, just for education, with professional learning groups on school redesign, user experience, learning gaming and more.
The Learning Counsel now produces 30 live events in U.S. cities each year. The events have panel discussions featuring nearby state and district-level experts, as well as breakout sessions and workshops. Key sponsoring vendors are selected to attend and invited to speak and then answer questions for the districts in an intimate one-on-one setting.
School districts are also recognizing the need to personalize while expanding the user experience as they implement professional development efforts. With a minimum of 70% of a school districtâs budget allocated toward personnel, providing appropriate opportunities is essential to student improving outcomes. Dr. S. Dallas Dance, managing partner of Infinite Solutions Enterprises and former superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland, works with organizations in all industries, including education, to help them recognize the value of solving problems through people and strategy. According to Dance, âEducators have taken the reins of personalized learning for students to new levels and while implementation varies based on leadership, every student experience must be about them. This also has to be the case for our teachers, staff, and support personnel. The one-size-fits-all approach does not work in the classroom for student learners and surely doesnât work outside of the classroom for adult learners either."
Market Pressures And The Demand For Digital Learning
According to Cauthen, âThis is a time of intense change for public education. School districts are experiencing pressure from all sides to modernize their delivery systems. More and more families are demanding a digital learning experience that will prepare their children for a changing economy. Increasingly, they are opting for alternative education for their children, including private schools, charter schools, homeschooling, unschooling and private online education companies. School districts are being asked to compete with these options, but itâs not a simple change.â
âDistricts are already seeing massive declines in enrollment, some as high as 30%. We bring together experts from every corner of the country to share which technologies are working and how to transform their districts into modern centers of learning. And itâs working.â
Barnes and Cauthen are disruptors bringing new direction to educator professional development. Together they represent a small but growing faction of the PD market; a segment that is positioned for success in the 21st century model of content creation and delivery. As business models, their efforts could very well act as harbingers to changeârepresenting a new focus that allows educators to decide how they want to learn and adapt.
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