Bruce Joyce Video

Welcome to Instruction Matters. If we expect students to learn more, the instructional practice of teachers must improve. We've  found a video that will help make clear how teachers improve their instructional practice from Bruce Joyce.  He and Beverly Showers did the seminal research in professional development related to how teachers do this -  improve their  instructional practice.

This video from Dr. Joyce is REALLY old. In fact when I first saw it, I wondered who it was. But it IS Bruce Joyce and I would guess this video is 35-40 years old. He references Jimmy Connors whose peak years as a tennis player ended  in 1978. However, old doesn't mean obsolete. In fact nothing has been done that would dispute Dr. Joyce and Dr. Showers' research.

Amazing that we've known this for 40 years but we still don't design our PD using this model. So despite knowledge and policy (this is the model embedded in the Iowa Administrative Code), we still expect teachers to change their practice by talking to each other in short meetings or going to workshops. 

Bruce Joyce Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPHRViyHsuo

This video is about an hour long, but would be a good thing to spend some time in a leadership meeting watching. After all improving instruction, is THE most important responsibility leaders have in schools if they are interested in improving outcomes for kids. So get the popcorn, watch the video and then respond to these questions:

• What from this video is new for you? 
• What did you already know? 
• How is our PD like this? 
• How is our PD different from this? 
• How can we begin to improve our PD?

We'd love to hear from you and your impressions.