Project 4 - Plan and Lead Professional Development
Overview -
As a school leader, it is important to know how adults learn. Adult learners are self directed, autonomous learners who need professional development that attends to their immediate professional needs. Understanding how adults learn and knowing the immediate needs of the staff help focus the professional development I provide making it more effective and relevant. As a leader, I am responsible for the professional development of staff. Because I am interested in providing opportunity and a space for professional growth, I actively listen to the interest expressed by staff on what information and training they need to grow professionally. Their involvement in setting professional development goals and objectives is crucial to the buy-in of the information being presented to staff.
An immediate need that arose from the staff was a training that would focus on how to utilize and work with support staff in more effective ways. The staff felt that they really did not understand the role of the support staff and how to effectively use them in the classroom. Working collaboratively with another colleague, we developed a professional development for teachers and support staff to clarify the support staff role and help facilitate teacher discussion on how to use support staff based on their skill set. Teachers and support staff collaborated and came up with tasks and ideas on how support staff could better work in the classroom to support student learning. Also, they developed ideas on how they could communicate their needs to support staff in a more productive and positive way. Support staff set clear expectations for their work and created, in collaboration with the teachers, classroom work schedules and weekly meetings to check in on the work they are accomplishing together.
The content of the professional development was created through immediate teacher needs. My colleague and I acted as facilitators in presenting the issues, but teachers and support staff determined how best they could work together and left with goals and expectations from one another. The most effective professional development comes when teachers work in a collegial way to collaborate to solve problems around student learning and or school culture.
Reflection -
I evaluate the success of the professional development by asking myself the following questions:
1. Was the professional development intentional and sustained? It was intentional, addressing the immediate needs of the staff. However, it was not sustained due to my lack of follow-through in creating a culture where everyone is accountable to what they said they would accomplish. My lack of follow-through with teachers and support staff allowed many to fall back into old habits.
2. Was the professional development individualized? The professional development was individualized given the fact that teachers and staff developed their own set of ways of working with one another.
3. Where there clear objectives? The objectives were clear. They were to develop clear expectations for work inside the classroom, define job responsibilities and set up new ways to communicate.
4. Was the professional development engaging? The professional development was engaging with an open flow of ideas, where people collaborated and shared freely their opinions and criticized the process and systems currently in place that don’t suit the needs of the students, teachers or support staff.
5. Was the professional development well-planned and applicable to practice? The professional development was collaboratively planned and co-facilitated.
6. Did the professional development focus on student learning? The professional development focused on a structure that when situated properly enhances the ability of the adults to improve student learning.
My goal is to always create a safe atmosphere during professional development allowing for open discussions and critical and reflective thinking. There was time for teachers to reflect on one’s values, beliefs, and assumptions and how these shape their communication and expectations of support staff. As a leader, you have to do your best to create professional development that is designed to meet the needs the staff have as professional practitioners. But just as important as creating that space is your follow-through as a leader. My lack of follow-through stopped teachers and support staff form continued knowledge building and collaborative inquiry.
CPSEL Connection -
CPSEL Standard 2
- Promote equity, fairness, and respect among all members of the school community. Provide opportunities for all members of the school community to develop and use skills in collaboration, distributed leadership, and shared responsibility. (Professional Development was an opportunity to address the immediate needs of the school community. Provided staff with tools to work more effectively with one another to improve student learning).
CPSEL Standard 3
- Establish school structures and processes that support student learning. (Facilitated the collaboration of an evaluation form for support staff so there was accountability for the work being performed in the classroom).
