You are responsible for providing effective, high quality professional development for the schools in your district. In your efforts to fulfill that responsibility you confront several questions and obstacles, including the following:
- How should you determine the content of the professional development program?
- What is the most effective delivery or structure of high quality professional development?
- How can you assess the impact of professional development?
We could spend years trying to fix whatever ails the student body but for the purposes of this task, we will focus on the staff.
1a. During a staff meeting, teachers worked in small groups of 4-5 to complete the "Perfect School" assessment. Teachers informally identified and discussed school strengths and weaknesses.
1b. To further identify and/or clarify issues, a leadership team (consisting of new and veteran teachers and administrators) compiled a data picture of our school gathered from the Perfect School assessment and a team-created questionnaire and focus groups to determine the following problems:
- Teacher burn out/ resistance to change
- The lack of strong professional relationships
- The lack of effective professional development
all play interconnected roles as to why HoPip just isn't working.
2. Quality professional development has to be embedded during the school day, whether daily or a specified time once per week and on-going. Teachers must be able to use whatever is learned in trainings, seminars, workshops in practical applications, meaning what is discussed in professional development must be relevant and functional in increasing student achievement. Information obtained in professional development must be results oriented, reflective, content rich, and regularly evaluated.
3. To evaluate the impact of professional development, teams can assess work formatively, summatively, through staff surveys, etc. See the NCREL link for details.
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