proposal for professional development katherine halliday

Proposal for Professional Development

Katherine Halliday

Background Information:

Established as a small district for surrounding rural towns in 1967

Towns developed with time and the school district grew exponentially

Two of the larger towns in the district are now considered suburban, while RSD’s rural roots still remain

Raider School District Information

Schools:

Student body contains approximately 7,300 students

Ten schools within the district:

4 elementary schools 2 upper elementary schools 1 - 7/8 middle school 1- 9/10 intermediate high school 1 - 11/12 senior high school 1 cyber school


High Schools:

9-12 student body consists of approximately 2,200 students

10 mathematics teachers at intermediate high school

9 math teachers at senior high school

The following mathematics courses are offered at both:

Algebra 1 Geometry Algebra 2 Algebra 3 Trigonometry Pre-Calculus with Trigonometry Introductory Statistics, Personal Finance College in High School (CHS) and Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics CHS and AP Calculus

There are also various honors courses available to students.


PSSA Data: In the past eight years, RSD’s 11th Grade Math PSSA

scores have increased; however, they have reached a plateau in the most recent five years:


2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120.0%

10.0%20.0%30.0%40.0%50.0%60.0%70.0%80.0%90.0%

100.0%

RSD 11th Grade Math PSSA Pro-ficiency

56.1% 59.5%64.1% 69.1% 71.2% 71.3% 72.2% 71.0%

Students’ math achievement has not significantly increased in the past five years

Raider Senior High School would like their students to:

Increase their proficiency level on the PA math assessment (Keystone’s Exams)

Shift from below basic or basic to proficient or advanced

Shift from proficient to advanced

Student Needs

Raider Senior High School teachers adjusted their curricula to focus on state standards (linked to the increase from 2005 – 2007)

Math teachers as a whole have not enhanced their instructional strategies A few teachers practice excellent instructional strategies Some want to do well, but need support from instructional

leaders A couple of math teachers are set in their traditional teaching

ways and are not provided with feedback to improve

Grades 9-12 math teachers are in need of rich professional development to improve their instruction If teachers differentiate their instruction through discovery-

based and rigorous task learning, students’ math performance will likely improve.

Teacher Needs

Background:

No concrete math professional development plans at high school level in past 7 years

Spoke to Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Curriculum about future math PD plans

9 – 12 math teachers will pilot a PD plan similar to the effective math plan at elementary levels next school year

Current Professional Development Plan

Elementary Math PD Plan: An elementary teacher working on her doctorate in

math education at University of Pittsburgh worked with Professor Margaret Smith to create a math instruction plan Dr. Smith - conducts research on characteristics of

math classrooms with high levels of cognitive demands

My colleague implemented Dr. Smith’s best practices into her classroom

Building principals saw the success of her instructional strategies

District administrators decided to implement an elementary professional development plan to incorporate the rigorous task and discovery-based learning strategies of Dr. Smith


Elementary Math PD Plan (continued): District leaders researched math education

consultants to focus on rigorous tasks that foster differentiated instruction

Created a pilot group of teachers to receive PD in 2009-2010 school year Completed 7 half-day PD sessions, in addition to weekly

professional learning community meetings with their colleagues

District leaders measured pilot students’ growth against control group’s growth using NWEA and PSSA data and found significant results

Plan continued with 2 more PD sessions for the pilot group, and the remaining elementary teachers in district began the two-year plan the following year


Elementary Math PD Results: The district also saw an increase in Math PSSA proficiency

levels year-to-year (not always statistically significant):


Secondary Math PD Plan: Due to the success at the elementary level, Raider School

District decided to implement the PD plan at the secondary level Started with half of the 7th and 8th grade math teachers this

school year Half of the 9 – 12 math teachers will begin the plan next school

year


2012 – 2013 School YearGroup 2 of K-6 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)

Group 3 of K-6 teachers beginning Year 1 of PD (7 sessions)

Group 1 of 7-8 teachers completing Year 1 of PD (5 sessions)

2013 – 2014 School YearGroup 3 of K-6 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)




2014 – 2015 School YearGroup 2 of 7-8 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)



2015 – 2016 School YearGroup 2 of 9-12 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)

Secondary Math PD Plan:

Every secondary math teacher will complete 2 years of professional development in math instruction

Due to budget constraints, district administrators may utilize teacher leaders to present professional development sessions

At this time, there are no concrete guidelines for the professional learning communities


1. Hire external, research-based consultants to facilitate professional development sessions

2. Provide explicit professional learning community guidelines for weekly meetings

3. Require all students to take NWEA assessments in fall and spring semesters to measure learning growth of professional development plan

Recommendations for Improvement

1. Hire Researched Professional Development Consultants:

It is challenging for internal leadership of professional development to be successful (Crow, 2008)

Hiring researched professional development consultants helps relieve schools of their belief that they are doing fine on their own (Crow, 2008)


1. Researched PD Consultants (continued): I suggest the district hire one of the researched math

consultants that have been used in our district in the past:

Dr. Margaret Smith Dr. Victoria Bill Dr. Diane Briars Dr. Melissa Boston Dr. J. Daniel Miller


Researched PD Consultants (continued): These consultants will help secondary math teachers

improve their instruction through incorporation of discovery-based learning through rigorous tasks that foster differentiated instruction

Teacher instruction will improve

Student math achievement will improve

Student data will be collected to measure growth: NWEA fall and spring math scores PSSA/Keystone Exam scores Classroom observations of student participation and use of

math talk Other classroom data


2. Guidelines for Professional Learning Community Meetings:

Coburn and Russell (2008) found successful results on teacher instruction when PLCs had structured guidelines and tasks

I recommend the district leaders work with the math consultant to create these guidelines and specific tasks for scheduled PLC meetings

Structured PLC meetings will hold teachers accountable to the new PD instructional strategies

Peer observations will help teachers successfully implement their strategies


2. Guidelines for PLC Meetings (continued):

We should see more class discussions, hands-on tasks, and differentiated instruction in math, which will increase students’ cognitive development

Student growth will be measured through the same collected data from the previous recommendation


3. NWEA Assessment Tool: Researched and utilized by RSD for past 10 years

All students in district take the NWEA in the fall and spring semester, except students taking honors or AP math courses The district’s previous focus was to reach out to lower

performing math students

What about our middle to high level math students?

Requiring all students to complete this assessment will provide teachers with baseline data to differentiate instruction and effectively plan tasks

Growth can be measured in the spring assessment


Coburn, C.E. & Russell, J.L. (2008). Getting the most out of professional learning communities and coaching: Promoting interactions that support instructional improvement. University of Pittsburgh Learning Policy Brief, 1(3) 1-5.

Crow, T. (2008). Declaration of interdependence. JSD, 29(3), 53-

56. Retrieved August 28, 2008, from: http://www.nsdc.org/library/publications/jsd/index.cfm

Pennsylvania department of education. (2012). Retrieved

November 4, 2012, from http://www.portal.state.pa.us

References

proposal for professional development katherine halliday

Documents

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students math achievement

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