The Importance Of Professional Development

Guskey (1986) and Hashweh (2004) describe professional development as a systematic attempt to bring about change. Guskey (1986) and Griffin and Barnes (1986) specifically describe the change components: (a) change in the classroom practices of teachers, (b) change in teacher’s beliefs and attitudes, and (c) change in the learning outcomes of students. When developing his model, Guskey (1986) questioned the order of these components.

Teaching is a great profession because they are fundamental for the development and success of their students. Teacher is a gate in education system. Students are in school most of their day causing teachers to be role models. Teachers are somewhat like their parent while they are in school teaching, guiding and protecting them. Teachers mold their students towards greatness and to be more responsible. Students are learning more and more from teachers to combine their beliefs and morals from their families to succeeded in life. Teacher professional development makes teacher commitment reveal itself as a real driving force behind student

The PLC is the most powerful on-going professional development in which teachers can be involved (DuFour et al., 2005). It is the only professional development that provides daily collegial and administrative follow-up and support. PLCs impact student achievement by allowing teachers time to assess their teaching pedagogy, content knowledge, and delivery of instruction. The professional learning community is designed around the following criteria:

Our professional development sessions are conducted weekly in a variety of subject areas, and the monthly school-wide session, using interactive reform activities, align with the Danielson Framework for Teaching (Danielson, 2013) to showcase best practices of teachers and to develop grade-level performance tasks, looking at students’ work to provide individual feedback that is aligned with the teaching rubric in order to show academic progress and growth in the target areas of ELA and Math.

Professional Development measures the degree to which teachers value continuous personal development and school-wide improvement.

Using Glickman (2014) as a reference point, there are two types of opportunity for learning that could be used to make staff development meaningful to teachers: integrated school-wide staff development and individual professional development. When using an integrated school-wide professional development, "it is critical that all members of the school community provide input into the school wide professional development goals” (Glickman, Gordon and Ross-Gordon, 2014). Moreover, the administration must provide an expansive objective for professional development so that all participants can adopt it and stay consistent with the school’s objective. A perfect example of a school-wide professional development would be addressing student discipline (Glickman et al., 2014). While certain groups of teachers might want to compare their decision with other schools, other groups could choose ”to attend a training program on effective discipline” (Glickman et al., 2014). When using individual professional development as an opportunity for learning, it is significant to consider the teacher’s personal input to the school-wide

Professional Development Assignment Rachel Hanson RN Aspen University Teresa Harden FNP February 1, 2016 Professional Development assignment Thesis Statements Explanatory Thesis An explanatory synthesis essay is used to help the reader get a complete understanding of the subject under consideration. The writer has to write the relevant information about a certain topic in an objective (or reasonably objective) and comprehensive way. The paper should be written like all papers, based around a solid thesis, but the purpose is to educate on all aspects rather than persuade a particular opinion.

Unfortunately, thorough research on the impact of professional development on student achievement is limited because it is challenging, complex and expensive to study. Nonetheless, Hoaglund, Birkenfeld, and Box, (2015), conducted a study that illustrated that learning communities are viable tools for providing professional development to both pre-service teachers and current teachers. Their study showed how a group of pre-service teachers and their supervisors participated in a professional experience learning community for two terms prior to the pre-service teacher’s junior year at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Questionnaires and interviews were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The results of the study indicated that all participants valued the experience and consequently were able to gain and identify some benefits of a professional learning community (PLC). Participants specifically reported a greater appreciation of collaboration with more experienced educators as a practical way of solving issues and implementing processes and procedures for increasing student achievement. The activities incorporated within the

The district beefed up the professional development for new teachers, especially those in the ARL program. Doing so has helped expand teachers capabilities which in turn increases their capacity in the school. In order for a school to be successful in reaching their mission,

This paper explores the Professional Development System of the Volusia County School Districts and how they are implemented. It addresses the unique contributions of Charlotte Danielson and how her Framework for Teachers influenced and aided the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices (FEAPs). This paper also addresses Assessment, Volusia Proficiency Model (VPM) and Problem solving techniques currently used in Volusia County Schools. It concludes with the author’s thoughts on how he would implement the knowledge and skills in each of these areas of Professional Development in the teaching and learning process.

The Framework for Teaching by Charlotte Danielson has been developed through research as a guideline for current and future teacher’s professional responsibilities in and out of the classroom. Districts throughout the country are using this framework to assess and guide their teachers to build successful methods of planning and preparations, setting up the classroom environment, instruction and professional responsibilities. Each of these domains builds off of each other to form a successful learning environment. Domain 3 focuses more specifically on instruction using communication, discussions, engagement, assessments and flexibility.

My theory of action was if I help teachers build instructional capacity by developing and improving their backwards planning or curriculum mapping (identifying essential standards) and enhance their data analysis approach, will they make a shift from following a script to making effective instructional decisions based on the specific needs of students. My strategic actions were to plan and design professional development opportunities that would enhance the teachers’ instructional practices and differentiate my support for them through professional learning communities, informal walkthroughs, and formal evaluation processes.

With the shift in professional learning from collecting PLUs to one focused on improving teaching and learning, it is important that teacher leaders play a role in implementing professional learning communities and helping to make sure accountability in professional learning. I am excited about the opportunity to share these changes and new expectations with fellow teachers. A fellow teacher and I have been trained on the upcoming changes and will be redelivering it to other teachers at our school in the near

Traditionally, teacher development typically occurs through trial and error in the isolated confinements of each teacher’s classroom with some periodic whole-group professional development (Goddard & Goddard, 2007). Within the past few decades, many schools and districts, including ours, have considered and experimented with Professional Learning Communities (PLC) as an alternative framework in guiding a more efficient development program for their teachers. PLCs are focused on enhancing student learning through developing teacher practices. The concept of PLC relies on using structured collaborative sessions amongst teachers within the school to build internal capacity. Through PLCs, teachers critically reflect on current

The focus of this paper is to analyze the supervision and evaluation of teachers at my Catholic school, and suggest a model program that better meets the needs of all teachers, regardless of their years in service. My experience teaching at the same school over the last 15 years indicates that supervision and evaluation of teachers is either a perfunctory task, or designed as a “gotcha” activity. In either case, there is never the expectation that the teacher and the administrator will collaborate to ensure teacher professional development, and no one would call it a meaningful process. Research shows that teachers do not become better teachers based on passive participation in an evaluation process they do not value. Charlotte Danielson (2010) argues that professional growth occurs only when teachers engage in “self-assessment, reflection on practice and professional conversation.” (p. 38).