How do you structure professional development for schools?
Professional development is structured to meet the specific needs of the school. From those needs, we develop clearly articulated objectives, with stated outcomes, and when applicable, products.
Programs developed by Teaching and Learning Solutions are geared to be constructivist in their approach to learning, and as such are interactive, requiring participant engagement.
We recognize that the program itself does not guarantee that changes will take place in the classroom or school. Knowing this, we work with schools to develop professional development programs that provide usable strategies, and when appropriate, support and coach school leadership groups to institute practices which support and monitor the implementation of the desired outcomes after the program has been delivered.
Are you available to facilitate full staff / faculty in-service programs?
We do facilitate full faculty in-service programs, when that format best fits the school’s objectives for the identified professional development. Some examples of large group programs would be:
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An overview of the Accreditation Standards to build understanding of the concepts embedded in the standards.
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An introductory workshop to Danielson’s text The Framework for Teaching, to build understanding of the uses of the Framework for Teaching in schools and school systems.
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Understand the use of rubrics as tools for classroom instruction.
Most educators prefer professional development that is not “fly by” or “one shot deals”. And in many cases, full faculty in-service programs are perceived that way by faculties. To address that perception, full faculty programs are designed to be constructivist and interactive, and are delivered in settings where faculty can sit in small table groups and work together during the course of the program.
What other types of professional develop programming do you recommend?
We’ve found that embedded professional development is one of the best models, and we use it frequently with schools. Embedded professional development builds the capacity of professional faculty in the school to facilitate and lead the work. As the use of internal facilitators strengthens in the school, the school as an organization is more capable of sustaining the work over long periods of time.
What does embedded professional development look like? Do you have examples?
Embedded professional development uses a “training of trainers” approach. When embedding professional development in a school we work directly with teachers, teams, instructional leaders, school leaders, co-chairs of committees, and other similar groups to plan all aspects of the professional development programs.
The following steps are an example of how embedded professional development could be planned with a school team. These steps could be revised based upon the content and context of the professional development being planned.
- Step one, planning meeting with a school-based team (team leaders, etc…)
- Step two, training in-school facilitators
- Step three, follow-up support
What types of professional development needs and programs work well in an embedded context?
Embedded professional development is more of a coaching model, in which we work with school teams to help them build the skills to lead the work in their own schools. It’s well suited to a variety of professional development programs. Here are some examples of programs that are best implemented through an embedded approach:
- Developing a school’s vision, mission, and expectations for student learning
- Developing school-wide rubrics to assess the school’s academic expectations
- Teaming practices: elementary through high school level teaming, building effective teams in a school and developing the skills of team leaders
- Formative assessment strategies and techniques
- Analyzing data to inform instruction
- Building professional learning communities and
promoting a school-wide collaborative culture
- Critical Friends Group training
- Supporting and coaching a school’s Accreditation Steering Committee
- Guiding and supporting the Accreditation self-study
- Supporting the work of a school’s literacy team to embed literacy instruction in all content areas
- Professional development and support to school leadership teams; including administrators, curriculum leaders, instructional supervisors, etc.
- Planning and implementing a school’s observation and supervision model
- Building understanding and use of teacher evaluation criteria and practices
- Incorporating instructional practices, such as writing across the curriculum, embedded literacy in all content areas, and others
- Developing and using protocols to monitor and learn about best practices in a school, such as “learning walks” or “walk-throughs”
This list could continue. Many professional development objectives can be met successfully through the use of embedded professional development.
How have you worked with schools to support Accreditation?
Accreditation support can be structured in a variety of ways, such as:
- Conducting a pre-accreditation “assessment” of the school to help determine areas of strength and areas of need relative to the Accreditation Standards of Membership.
- Support, embedded professional development and coaching for the school’s Steering Committee to help navigate the self-study process.
- Full faculty overviews of the Accreditation Standards.
- Support and professional development to address recommendations contained in the two and five year follow-up reports.
- Assisting with the review / development of a school’s mission and expectations for student learning, including the development of rubrics to assess the academic expectations.
- Assisting in the development of systems to report individual student and school-wide attainment of the school’s learning expectations.
What work have you done to support school reform efforts?
School reform involves facilitating the vision for the school transformation, which is aligned with the mission and expectations. Once the vision is developed, support for the reform can be provided at all levels; from facilitating vision and leadership team work to providing professional development that supports the desired outcomes. We emphasize that school reform is more than changing the structure of a large school. Real reform requires that instructional practices are examined and improved to ensure every child graduates ready for college or post-secondary learning.
What is systems thinking, and how does that apply to schools?
Peter Senge, in his book The Fifth Discipline describes systems thinking “as a philosophical alternative to the pervasive ‘reductionism’ in Western culture - the pursuit of simple answers to complex issues” (p. 185). Systems thinking asks us to examine all aspects of an issue and in doing so, expose biases and assumptions that may influence any given solution. To employ systems thinking, a group or team acknowledges that there may be more than one way to examine a complex issue, and better solutions are found when all lenses and perspectives are viewed, uncovered, and well thought through. systems thinking examines cause and effect relationships, how management structures within an organization behave and react, and how they influence each other, and when developing solutions, works to address root causes and sustained organizational improvement.
