Professional Development

There are different types and forms of professional development.  I believe the ultimate goal of any educational professional development is to increase student achievement.   All professional learning impacts student learning.  From the custodian to the superintendent training sessions, all are essential to the school day and student learning.  Think about the role of the custodian.  His/her job is to keep the school clean and be a mentor or friendly adult on campus that make students feel welcome and connect to the school.   Custodians receive training or professional development on how to do their job more efficient and respond to the staff and students’ needs quickly.  Furthermore, I believe being in a clean school has an impact on student learning because it makes the school inviting to all.  The superintendent’s role is to be a visionary for change.

Professional development is about changing practices and mindsets in order to improve student achievement.  We, as educators must be willing to evolve with society and ensure our students are equipped with the necessary 21st century skills (e.g. critical thinking, problem solving, creative, collaboration) in order to have authentic choices after high school (i.e. college or career).
Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, and Yoon (2001) states that reform efforts mainly fall on the qualifications and effectiveness of teachers.  In order to improve the teaching and learning process, both teachers and students will be impacted in a way that stretches their thinking and changes or refines a practice.   Shifting from memorizing facts to conceptual understanding, mean teachers must know the content they are teaching and how students learn (Garet et al., 2001).

According to Garet et al. (2001), professional development has structural and core features.  Structural features are the form of the activity (e.g. study groups, mentoring, coaching), duration of the activity, and the degree of collective participation.  These features focus on how the professional development will be delivered, follow-up sessions, and collaboration among colleagues.  Core features are content focus, active learning, and coherence with teachers’ goals, standards and assessments.  Steiner (2004) mentions that it is important to have the right kinds of experiences that will motivate and enable teachers to implement the new learning.  Also, a focus on content has a strong effect on teaching practices.  Professional development should be linked to teachers’ professional growth plan, school and/or district needs based on data.  As I review the structural and core features, those are components that should be part of any effective lesson which can move student learning forward as well.

Coaching as a form of professional development has sparked my interest.  Steiner (2004) states that coaching as a collaborative planning and development of curriculum and instruction is a powerful practice.  I never thought about omitting feedback in the coaching process and having the teacher as the coach.  I need to investigate this model and I believe this can have a great impact in my district.

References

Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F. & Yoon, K. S. (2001). What makes professional
development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers.  American Educational Research Journal, (38)4 (Winter, 2001), 915-945.

Steiner, L. (2004). Designing effective professional development experiences: what do we know?
Learning Point Associates, John Edward Porter Professional Development Center, Naperville, IL.