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Engage, Connect, Learn: New Approaches for
Professional Learning
October 22, 2013MASSP Fall Conference
Mission, Outcomes, Goals
• GOAL: Provide professional learning opportunities
• GOAL: Promote strategies that support student achievement
• GOAL: Provide visible leadership and advocacy for professional learning
• GOAL: Create a culture to encourage and sustain effective professional learning and growth
Provide vision to build educator capacity Provide
leadership to build educator capacity
Provide support to build educator capacityPromote
continuous student learning and school improvement
Organizational Outcomes
Organizational Outcomes
Project Outcomes
Learning Forward MD’s Mission, Outcomes and Goals
• What are the Standards for Professional Learning?
• How can the standards improve the quality and effectiveness of professional learning?
• What do the standards look like in practice?
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
Leadership
Resources
Learning Communities
Learning Designs
Implemen-tation
Outcomes
Data
Standards for Professional Learning
• Purpose of professional learning is for educators to develop knowledge, skills, practices, and dispositions to help students perform at high levels
• Guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of professional learning
WHY
Learning Communities
LeadershipResourcesDataLearning DesignsImplementationOutcomes
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What could happen if …?
Learning Communities
LeadershipResourcesDataLearning DesignsImplementationOutcomes
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What could happen if …?
Learning Communities
LeadershipResourcesDataLearning DesignsImplementationOutcomes
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What could happen if …?
Standards-based
professional learning
Changes in educator
knowledge, skills, and dispositions
Changes in educator practice
Changes in student results
Relationship Between Professional Learning and Student Results
Standards-based
professional learning
Changes in educator
knowledge, skills, and dispositions
Changes in educator practice
Changes in student results
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Becoming a Learning System: Standards in Practice
Con
vent
iona
l Sys
tem
Learning System
What is the relationship between the Standards for Professional Learning and student results?
Patapsco High School
and Center for the
Arts
Standards in Practice
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/17_nldqyeNIrecUnhjEfjo5n33ndsYU9q4s9GCV3iWl0/edit?usp=sharing
• Based on teachers’ individual professional growth plans.
• Differentiated based on teachers’ needs and interests.
• Flexible enough to adapt to new areas of focus over time.
Standards in Practice
Our PD Needs
• Ensure faculty and department meetings model best practices for instruction.
• Aggressively eliminate meeting time spent on issues not directly related to instruction.
• Minimize after school meetings and re-purpose that time to implement the Patapsco University professional learning plan.
Standards in Practice
Our PD Plan
• Great opportunities for aspiring leaders to organize meaningful professional learning in an authentic way.
• Can earn an MSDE credit.
• Some folks will look for “credit” everywhere and not truly engage in professional learning.
Standards in Practice
Pros
Cons / Challenges
People in schools are generally working at or near their maximum levels of skill and knowledge. In order to do the work better, they need to know how to do things that they currently don't know how to do, and, in order to do that, they need to operate in workplaces designed to develop their practice.
- Richard Elmore
from the Foreword of A Playbook for Professional Learning
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www.learningforwardmaryland.org
How to Contact Us