​Let me tell on myself. I was the teacher who LOVED professional development. From day one of teaching, I looked forward to learning new things, coming up with new ideas, and growing my teaching strategies. I was shocked to learn early in my career that not all teachers felt the same way. After a couple of years in the classroom, I started to understand the apathetic emotions toward professional development. Much of it was cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all. It was information transfer, lacking collaboration and follow-up. Much of it, unfortunately, lacked personalized instruction, meeting us where we were in our classrooms, content and instruction. I learned early on that I would have to work extremely hard to take what I had learned and apply it in my classroom. This happened even in the most exciting, fun, engaging PD. It was the actual implementation of the learned information where PD consistently missed the mark.

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Fast-forward 7 years, and now I'M the one providing professional development to teachers across my district. Having just been in their shoes, I know what it's like to struggle with information overload and zero follow-up. Therefore, my motivation when implementing my innovation plan, Empower: Blended Learning Leadership Program, stems from being on the other side and understanding wholeheartedly the effects of ineffective PD. I want to provide something different. I want to provide PD that contains ongoing support, implementation support, active participation, modeling, and differentiated, personalized instruction. This notion of providing effective PD has always been at the forefront of my mind. This particular course has confirmed and validated my goals of implementing professional development in the Empower Program.