Professional Development: Supporting Teacher

Effectiveness and Retention

Carol AlbrittonOffice of Professional Standards, Licensing and Higher Education Collaboration

Sandra O’NeilOffice of Academic Standards

Current Research on Professional Development

Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U. S. and Abroad

ByLinda Darling-Hammond, et. al.School Redesign Network, Stanford University

andNational Staff Development Council

February, 2009

the most comprehensive study of professional development ever conducted in the U.S.

Professional Learning in the Learning Profession

Share the study through jigsaw groups.– Form groups of 3– Everyone reads pages 3-6 silently (Preface and Key

Findings)(6 minutes)

– Each person selects a chapter to read silently (5 minutes)

– Share the key ideas from each chapter with your group (6 minutes)

Comments on the report’s findings?

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

Confucius

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Many teachers state that they learned more in

the first year of teaching than in all the years of formal teacher preparation.

From Professional Developmentto Professional Learning

Rick DuFour asks: “Why do institutions created for and devoted to learning not call upon the professionals within them to become more proficient in improving the effectiveness of schools by actually doing the work of school improvement?”

Learning By Doing (2006)

Job-embedded learning that improves teacher practice is formalized by developing a school culture around professional learning community principles.

Regulations: N.J.A.C. 6A:9-15Creation of a school level professional development committee (SPDC) comprising 3 teachers and one administrator2008 – 2009 a developmental year for learning about effective professional learning practices at the school levelInitial school level plans will be written in Fall 2009 for the 2010 – 2011 SY and submitted to the local committee (LPDC) Multiple training opportunities from NJ DOE and partner organizations

Details:Webinar Number One – Download and view the recorded

webinar and powerpoint document:www.nj.gov/education/profdev/pd/teacher

NJ Professional Development Initiative Focusing Collaborative Professional Learning

New Jersey Professional Development Standards for EducatorsNew Jersey Professional Standards for Teachers and School LeadersNew Jersey Core Curriculum Content StandardsSchool needs assessment and other relevant data (achievement, demographic, perception, school processes)School improvement goalsStudents’ daily work / formative assessments / summative assessments

NJ DOE has a long-standing partnership with NSDC who developed and published a tool kit to support the development of professional learning communities:

Collaborative Professional Learning in School and Beyond: A Tool Kit for New Jersey Educators

ContentsChap. 1 – A New Kind of Professional DevelopmentChap. 2 – Aligning the Standards: Making the CaseChap. 3 – Collaborative Professional LearningChap. 4 – Getting StartedChap. 5 – Supportive Conditions for Collaborative Professional LearningChap. 6 – Facilitating Collaborative TeamsChap. 7 – Making TimeChap. 8 – Using DataChap. 9 – Working CollaborativelyChap. 10 – Team Planning and ReportingChap. 11 – Role of PrincipalChap. 12 – Role of Central OfficeChap. 13 – Evaluating Collaborative Professional Learning

School Culture—Shared Purpose and Vision

“Great schools ‘row as one’; they are quite clearly in the same boat, pulling in the same direction in unison. The best schools we visited were tightly aligned communities marked by a palpable sense of common purpose and shared identity among staff—a clear sense of ‘we.’ By contrast, struggling schools feel fractured; there is a sense that people work in the same school but not toward the same goals.”

Lickona and Davidson (2005)

Culture Audit: A First Step toward Developing A PLC

Tool Kit —Tool 5.2: Self-Assessment: School Culture Triage. Used successfully in public schools of North Carolina, Florida and Kentucky over the last decade. It can be used with one school or an entire district to provide immediate feedback.

1. Form groups of 3.2. Complete the self-assessment individually for

a school or district you know well. (4 minutes)3. Score your results by adding the points.

1 point = never 5 points = always or almost always

Culture AuditA First Step toward Developing A PLC

Discuss these questions in your group:(6 minutes)

1. Which attributes that align with best practices received high marks? To what do you attribute these practices?(Policies? Infrastructure? Tradition? Reforms? Leadership? Other?)

1. Which attributes that align with best practices received low marks? To what do you attribute the low marks?

The Heart of the Work: PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS

Team composition: by grade level, whole faculty, departmental, articulation, interdisciplinary, small learning community faculty, etc.

Action researchStudy groupsMentoring/coachingAnalysis of student workCurriculum design/curriculum mappingCommon assessmentsTuning protocolsData analysisLesson Study

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS

Teams focus on the guiding questions to achieve results:

What is essential for students to learn?How will we know if they have learned it?What will we do if they don’t learn?What will we do if they already know it?What do teachers need to know to support student learning?

Supporting Collaboration

Teachers

School-based Resource Staff and

Supervisors

Principal

District Curriculum and PD Supervisors

Launching a PLC: Some Advicefrom A School Leader

1. Read the article “How to Launch a Community” by Rick DuFour. (3 minutes)

2. Highlight or underscore 2 statements that you can take back and share with colleagues.

3. Discuss the 2 statements in your group. What concrete advice from this principal’s experience can you apply to your school or district? (3 minutes)

Getting Buy-in

1. Read the article “Getting Everyone to Buy In” by Rick DuFour. (3 minutes)

2. Highlight or underscore 2 statements that you can take back and share with colleagues.

3. Discuss the 2 statements with your team members. What practical lesson is found in this principal’s experience?

(3 minutes)

Comments?

“Unless teams of teachers improve together, schools never will.”

Michael Fullan

Research Linking Professional Learning Communities with

School Improvement

Linda Darling Hammond, The Right to LearnMichael Fullan, Change ForcesFred Newmann and Gary Wehlage,

Successful School RestructuringMike Schmoker, ResultsSteve Klein, et.al., Fitting the Pieces:

Education Reform that Works

Research Linking Professional Learning Communities with

School Improvement

Richard Sagor, Collaborative Action Research for Educational Change

Jonathan Saphier, John Adams’ PromiseDoug Reeves, The Leader’s Guide to

StandardsRobert Marzano, What Works in SchoolsGordon Cawelti, “The New Effective

Schools” in Best Practices, Best Thinking and Emerging Issues in School Leadership

New Jersey Tool Kit

The tool kit is password-protected on the NJDOE web site. It will be available for download from December 1, 2008 until December 31, 2009. To access the tool kit after entering the URL, write to:

TeachPD@doe.state.nj.usEmail your questions and comments related

to professional learning

Additional Resources“A Common Language” – professional learning

community defined by partner organizations (request at TeachPD@doe.state.nj.us)

Learning by Doing. (2006) Rick DuFour, et. al., Solution-Tree.

Failure Is Not An Option (2004) Alan Blankstein, Corwin Press.

Additional ResourcesLeading Professional Learning Communities. (2007)

Hord and Sommers, Corwin Press.

Finding Time. (2008) Ed. Valerie Von Frank, NSDC

Creating a Culture. (2008) Ed. Valerie Von Frank, NSDC

Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work.(2008) DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Many, Solution -Tree.

www.allthingsplc.org www.nsdc.orgwww.solution-tree.com

Opportunities

• NJ DOE series of webinars on collaborative professional learning (download prerecorded webinars and view individually or with teams of educators – instructions online)

• Convocation for superintendents and LPDC chairpersons

• NJ DOE regional training opportunities for school/district teams

• Partner organizations provide opportunities state wide and regionally

• Development of PLC virtual networks of schools and districts

Partner Organizations

NJDOENJEANJASANJPSANJSBANJASCDKean University

Training opportunities:

www.nj.gov/education/events www.nj.gov/education/njpep

Professional Development:

www.nj.gov/education/profdev/pd/teacher

Highly Qualified Teacher Requirements:

www.nj.gov/education/profdev/nclb