Professional Development – Quality Teachers = Quality Teaching/Learning for Students = Student Success/Achievement

What constitutes the best professional development? How can we effectively empower teachers to conscientiously analyze and use data, employ high-yield instructional strategies (Marzano’s 9), and assess the effectiveness of these strategies in the classroom?

The National Staff Develop Council has a new definition of staff development and specific strategies for us all to aid in our effort to ensure effective teaching, and therefore increase student achievement. Their definition includes the following components:

PL must be comprehensive, sustained, and intensive and is best incorporated at each individual school site.

PL must incorporate the Continuous Cycle of Improvement: 1. Analyzing data 2. Defining learning goals, 3. Implementing strategies, and 4. Assessing the effectiveness of PL efforts to see if learning goals and standards by students were met and improved teaching occurred.

Outside sources of PL are still needed for new knowledge, theory, practices, and strategies; however when outside sources are used for PL in a school/district they must align their message to the goals and needs of schools at their individual levels.

It is absolutely no longer acceptable for one teacher to learn in isolation. PL must be done as a collaborative community. Effective PL should be job-embedded and occur several times a week. It should involve ‘Coaches.’

According to the NSDC, the most successful schools – which include student populations of all levels and backgrounds – have some common attributes:

1. They have great leaders

2. They engage in great professional learning that involves a collaborate community where all teachers and staff are committed and learning is always the ‘fabric’ of the school

~Please visit http://www.nsdc.org/standfor/definition.cfm for detailed information and videos.

So, if effective PL encompasses these things:

1. Learning community/collaboration

2. Continuous Coaching

3. Modeling of Best Practices

4. Availability at any time through a variety of delivery systems

5. Integrated and aligned with district and campus standards and goals

…..what does this mean for BISD ITS? What does this mean for our district as a whole?