The Importance Of Professional Development In Education

The first standard of the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Professional is, teachers understand student learning and development and respect the diversity of the students they teach. To apply this standard into my practice I plan on being able to observe the students I work with and understand how each student learns. To demonstrate that I am adhering to this standard I will find different ways to reward each student for being them and being strong for pushing through their obstacles.

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

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.

Professional development took on a new identity in 2010. The National Staff Development Council (NSDC) began focusing on “professional learning” and rebranded the idea of professional development. “Learning Forward”, as it is now referenced, embraces professional learning that increases the effectiveness of educators and grows all students (Learning Forward, 2011). A new focus on professional learning evolved into the creation of new standards, these new NSDC Standards now focus on educator effectiveness.

To further help the veteran teachers and the new teachers coming in, professional development will require an ongoing commitment from all levels of the school organization. There will need to be resources available to help guide the teachers’ professional development. The adoption of professional learning communities (PLC’s) within the school and district supporting them is paramount. The continued development will help the teachers implement PBL (Rosenblatt, 2012)

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

When considering the rich array of both quantitative and qualitative approaches there is available in research for collecting the data one needs; surveys, observations, interviews and reflection sheets are typically mentioned and consider as forms for determining the effectiveness of professional development sessions or programs. A survey that is conducted after PD sessions that contain about five statement questions that asked participants to rate it and are based on a rating scale ranging from five being the strongly agreed upon to one-strongly disagreeing upon is a method to consider when collecting the data. Once again according to Hayes et al., (2007) formative evaluation in the daily lives of teachers using the new instructional practices is another method of collecting data to develop further PD. Klassin, Krawchuk, Lynch and Rajani (2008) report in their research the use of semi-structured individual interviews as a technique for collecting qualitative data to gather background information and asked open-ended questions about the current PD sessions attended. Besides surveys and semi-structured interview, a 3-2-1 exit ticket approach after the learning session can also be used to help teachers reflect on the material presented. In addition, well-designed surveys,

Administrators are challenged to develop professional development programs for their schools with the ultimate goal of addressing student achievement through improving or reinforcing current teaching practices. Unfortunately many administrators have a difficult time navigating the complicated process of deciding what needs to address as well as how to address them. In his article, “Leadership for Effective Change: Creating Intentionality Using Staff Development”, S. Michael Putman addresses how the Intentional Teaching Model (INTENT) gives administrators an almost step-by-step guide for developing professional development opportunities and activities to achieve their ultimate goal: student growth and achievement. The INTENT model is broken down into four interdependent phases: examinining the beliefs of the participants, identifying and establishing goals, deliberately modifying instructional practices, and consitatantly demonstrating goal aligned behaviors.

Professional Standards: High-level, broad guidelines that describe what any school leader needs to know and be able to

What are some of the main purposes, guidelines, and standards for professional development? The purpose of professional development is increase student achievement and to determine strategies that are beneficial for students (Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz, 2014, p.387). It is to provide research-based strategies to aid teachers in being successful with their students. What is more, the guidelines to aid teachers are to focus on what the teacher needs, as well as the learning community. In addition, the professional developments focus on academic and school improvement. While in these professional developments, teachers should learn about the best practices to aid teachers to become experts in their content, pedagogy, and technology. These training should also allow teachers to plan with others in their field and content areas. In order to ensure that teachers learn the information, they should be provided adequate amount of time to learn the information (Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz, 2014, p.387). Finally, the standards should include strategies that are research based, broad and collaborative, content-specific and differentiate for a diverse set of learners (Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz, 2014, p.388).

Professional development principles Ben embraces are Rigor, Relationships, Relevance and Realness. Mr. Rhodes continually emphasizes that work needs to have relevance and rigor in assignments and that the relationships teachers build with students is essential for success. Specific content used for staff development goals are Glenn Singleton’s work (Equity), National Achievement Gap, High Performing Schools, 90/90/90 Studies, 21st Century Skills, Marzano’s Instructional Strategies, and Heidi Hayes Jacobs’ literacy work. A variety of activities for teaching new skills to teachers occurs throughout the year. These include study groups, guest speakers, ERO (staff development classes), open classroom visits, master teachers sharing best practices in literacy, differentiated instruction, , math, and culturally responsive teaching, conference opportunities, mentors, district content area inservices, building inservice days, monthly district content area meetings, partnerships with universities, Collaborative Action Research for Equity (C.A.R.E.) cadre, and monthly building equity meetings. Mr. Rhodes uses the district Teaching Learning Cycle (Plan-Teach-Monitor- Adjust) to evaluate and assess the learning goals and make improvements. Ben also meets with Ben and the leadership team about the goals and creates the timeline to provide training and analyze progress. Evaluation of the learning goals using the SIP (as a living document) and individual goals are important

Encouraging professional development for new and veteran teachers is very important for multiple reasons. Often times, new teachers still need time to become better acquainted with teaching in the classroom. On the opposite side, veteran teachers need to know what is current in education that can be implemented in their classroom. Professional development programs like mentorships, professional development plans, and continued development are important programs to have in place for teachers. For these programs to be successful and provide the support and development that a teacher needs, they have to be quality programs. Just as students and children have different ways that they learn, so do teachers and adults. Programs that will provide the development in teachers that is vital for their teaching will take this into consideration.

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).

Being a teacher is not an easy task as many people could think. To be a teacher does not only imply to know the subject to be taught, it also includes being willing to constantly improve oneself integrally, as much as updating the resources and materials one uses in teaching. Reflecting and analyzing over and over again the best way to teach to learn and how to make students to extend what has been learned. The many hours spend in the classroom will never be enough to plan lessons, prepare materials, review pupils tasks and exams, as well, all the administrative requirements one has to cover for whatever institution we work. Besides all this a good teacher, a professional one, will have to find the time to keep preparing to improve