Bad PD # 517

At a six-hour PD I had the misfortune of having to attend, the moderator put this slide on the screen in a defense against the call for evidence that certain teaching practices are effective. It was a slide from a presentation by David Theriault, who teaches English and has a blog:

Essentially, Mr. Theriault felt that the question about having research to back up a practice was irritating. What he calls research is what he sees in the classroom. I’ve heard it many times before in a “It works for me” type defense.

Well, traditionally taught math worked for me, but I’m fairly certain the moderator of the PD as well as Theriault and others would not find that acceptable.

The PD was full of the usual platitudes that “worksheets are bad, experiential learning is good”. As a final task of the day, we were asked to draw specific geometric…