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Professional development is the systematic and comprehensive approach to continuous learning that will ensure employees remain abreast and current in their field, enhance knowledge and skills, and engage in activities that will contribute to the sustained growth of Catawba Valley Community College. Each employee is responsible for developing an annual professional development plan that aligns with the Catawba Valley Community College short and long term

The number of key aspects that each system offers is unimaginable. All three vendors boast of similarities. A few to mention are Instructor grade books, attendance scanning, Email and texting capabilities student financial tracking, and Student academic record keeping. One key aspect that two out of the three vendors

All professional development experiences should be: based on an assessment of need; generated from outcome objectives; planned for successful, progressive learning; and evaluated for attainment of delineated outcomes. A variety of methods, settings, and types of experiences should be employed to best meet the acquisition of new knowledge, skills, and abilities.1

Roberts, S. & Pruitt, E. (2003). Schools as Professional Learning Communities: Collaborative Activities and Strategies for Professional Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

I approach collaboration as a team player, and I believe students need more than one person to guide them to their full educational potential. Also, active and prepared participation of weekly PLC meetings with the teachers of my special education students to plan collaborative curriculum have increased results in math and reading substantially. Participating in co-teaching furthers my repertoire of knowledge to assist my students. I have learned a vast amount from sharing and consulting with colleagues regarding students, observing mentoring teachers, and planning activities to ensure growth in students.

Learning Partnership measures the degree to which teachers, parents, and students work together for the common good of the student. (Gruenert & Valentines, 1998)

My first shadowing experience was on April 6, 2017 in a Prince Gorges County Public School middle school facility. As I entered the building, I was greeted by a young man (a student) holding the door for me. “How polite” I thought to myself. He then directed me to the office. Once in the office, I was greeted by the secretary and asked to wait patiently because they were extremely busy. Even though the front office was busy, everyone was welcoming, friendly yet efficient.

In order to implement an effective Professional Learning Community (PLC) for the development of a Google-Based School, the team must create an environment conducive to their needs and how they best work in a group setting. In order for the Professional Learning Community to be effective in the implementation of a school-wide initiative, the members of the community must have confidence that they are the main group leading to change in the school (Wood, 2007). Creating a functional team involves key factors involving the team characteristic, recognizing positive and negative forces relating to these characteristics, and overcoming the negative forces in a systematic manner (Mealiea, & Baltazar, 2005). Moreover, importance for creating an effective Professional learning community focuses on open sharing, developing skills, identifying and utilizing resources, and forming frames of reference (Spanneut, 2010). Each of these characteristics falls into the overall systematic creation of the learning community that works to increase student learning by creating and achieving specific goals and through setting ground rules, goal setting and analysis, and delegation of tasks in order to prepare to implement the Google-Based School initiative.

In my classroom, I demonstrate collaboration by attending the Kinder PLC meeting every Tuesday. These meetings help the grade level teachers to collaborate. For example, to come up with ideas on how to teach a specific concept, talk about any updates, student assistance team (SAT) , and data analysis. I demonstrate collaboration by working with my colleagues to come up with writing prompts and writing rubrics. By doing this we make sure the expectations in each classroom are the same.

Allowing collaboration and mutual decision making to take place in a school allows everyone to have input on what’s happening and changing at all times. It provides opportunities for teachers to gain leadership skills and students to learn in various ways. When students and teachers buy into what they are learning then they will show improvement at a faster pace. Students must know that their input is important and adults must know they are appreciated.

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

Some may argue that we should introduce this new system into all of our schools. While there is a slight chance that using this new method in our school system may benefit us, there would be many shortcomings that would outweigh the good things about it. Although I believe that we should be persistent with our current system, there are minimal changes that could be made to enhance it. Any of the alterations that could be done to improve our system would be minor,

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

Collaboration between teachers is a key component to professional development that will lead to higher student achievement. There is a need for schools to set up time for teachers to be able to collaborate together. This allows for teachers to help each other, matchup content, teach each other new and best practices, troubleshoot student issues just to name a few of the areas that collaboration time can help foster within a school. The key is to build time for teachers to be able to collaborate during the school day or week. This collaboration time needs to be between grade levels, departments, and cross curricular when needed. For many schools this is an afterthought to the school schedule or a fleeting thought after the master schedule is completed. A principal needs to keep an open mind to any strategy that will enable the teachers to be able to collaborate for the good of the students and the school.

“Through collaboration, ideas can be shared, new and better strategies can be developed, problems can be solved, students’ progresses can be better monitored, and their outcomes are evaluated effectively.”¬ (Lee, 1996).