Sharing a Worst Practice

Sharing a Worst Practice for the sake of improvement.

Critics of sharing Best Practices argue that the lack of result data defeats the concept of a Best Practice. For the most part changing input behavior does not constitute improvement. Is it possible that sharing Worst Practices is a solution to identifying strategies for improvement? At least by sharing what did not work includes results data, granted not desired results, yet results.

I can reflect on activities this past year that failed, yet even though they fall short of being identified as a Best Practice, there is a need to share what did not work. Our Teacher Leadership design that involved a professional learning community with teachers from across the district failed to materialize. Analysis of the design, participant work, and interviews identified what to do differently to increase desired results. If offered again we would need to identify if participants are geographically undesirable and provide a plan for collaboration. My Worst Practice is not providing a structure during the course for participants to develop a plan to work together.

Inspired by Chris Blatman, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Economics at Yale University (http://tinyurl.com/qo9jq8)

A response to Chris can be found at Why Not Share Your Worst Practices? http://tinyurl.com/ouanyo