ITI Corner
Equipping Stakeholders with
By Ryan Cardwell , Director of the Ivy Training Institute
Over the past year the Ivy Training Institute has accomplished quite a lot in the servicing of better student outcomes through professional development . More importantly , we have learned an enormous amount about how to deliver , optimize and improve Professional Development outcomes in the future .
What We Did
Starting with the Builders Conference in August of 2017 we delivered 227 number of hours to 914 number of teachers and staff around China . We have trained on topics ranging from business and ethics to design thinking and classroom management . We arranged one-off workshops and multi-day professional development retreats . We ran our first program outside of Beijing : a series of workshops for teachers and parent talks .
Through it all , one thing was very clear : the desire to participate in and be improved by Professional Development is very strong in our organization , and I find that extremely encouraging .
What We Learned
Recently , I completed an extensive report on this very topic . Though the report runs 18 pages , I can summarize our key findings here .
1 . There is a need to focus on long term training programs over one-off workshops . This applies to both live and online training programs .
2 . There is a need to choose and deploy key cultural concepts organization wide .
3 . We must collect feedback , follow up and measure the impact of training on student outcomes .
4 . Regular observation and discussion of practice is necessary with teachers at all levels .
5 . Professional Development must be differentiated by program , campus , job scope and point in career development .
This means that in the coming months and years , we will be focused on the development of more long term and in-depth training programs that are aimed at key cohorts of teachers . We realize that the support and training needs of our teachers at Ivy Academy in Beijing are quite different than that of our Multiple Intelligences Kindergarten Teachers in Chengdu . We must be mindful of this fact , and design our programming accordingly .
Second , we need to help people to talk more about our core values and organizing principles . We need to afford people with the opportunity to discuss MI Theory and Gardner ’ s subsequent work in an effort to move forward the goals and aspirations of our organization .
Finally , we realize that we at ITI must play a larger role in both measuring the efficacy of our training efforts , as well as providing ongoing support for the application of the skills taught .
Final Thought
It has been a fantastic year in which we accomplished a remarkable amount and learned valuable lessons that will inform our work for years to come . We promise that we will continue to equip our participants with not only the courage , but also the tools to change and inspire .
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