Staff Development

What has been your experience?

Florida Law

• Each certified teacher must take 120 inservice hours or college course in area of certification every five years

• This has led to random training just to fulfill this requirement

Paradigm Shift

• Emphasis has changed from content to process

• See the shift- Young p. 330

Staff development is not just for teachers!

Staff development is expected of all individuals , not just specific groups of employees.

The Individual Professional Development Plan

• IPDP- has a bad reputation but can be effective if used properly.

• Many teachers graduated before high stakes testing and NCLB- technology

A Nation at Risk(U.S. Department of Education’s National commission on Excellence in Education,

1983)

Widely believed to be the primary reason that change and reform has been the rule rather than the exception since the 1980’s

If you don't like the weather in Florida, stick around for a few minutes, it'll change.

Change comes about from both internal and external sources, or some combination of both.

External• Research findings• International comparisons• Federal agendas• State mandates• Community expectations

Internal• Priorities of the Board of

Education• Desires of the central

administration• Needs of individual

employees

Development of school employees and school officials should be an ongoing process and should consider

immediate as well as advanced career stages and needs of individuals.

What Makes Staff Development Effective?

• Part of everyday school life

• Not a one-shot process, but on-going

• Focus on the organization, individual group needs (subject area, grade level, beginning teachers)

• Use a variety of delivery systems (study groups, mentorships, peer observation, action research)

• Systematic follow-up (formative and summative evaluation)

Important tasks that must be addressed continuously by those charged with staff development when attempting to execute an effective and efficient program of staff development Assess for effectiveness considering individual, unit, and system

performance, thereby

Improving or eliminating ineffective and inefficient development activities

Begin with the end in mind when developing and shaping programs as stated within the strategic plan of a school district.

Link vital sub-processes (I.E. recruitment, selection, induction and performance appraisal) into the staff development program.

View staff development plan as an important vehicle for Career development plans.

Considers strategic changes in the internal and external environments that impact staff development.

Establish a proactive agenda that anticipates change rather than a reactive one that simply reacts to the latest trends or problems.

Base the program on the needs of your specific school. Every school is different, even when comparing primary to primary etc. Avoid the temptation to clone another schools development program.

Upgrade investments in areas that are found to have the greatest impact on performance improvement as it relates to the public school district.

There is no guesswork!

Most of the goals of an effective staff development program have been identified through extensive

research about the product.

Focus on teachers but include all members of the school community.

Focus on individual, collegial, and organizational development.

Respect and nurture intellectual and leadership capacity.

Have the best available research and practice in teaching, learning and leadership.

Enable teachers to develop further expertise in subject content and teaching strategies, technology use and other essential elements of teaching.

Promote continuous inquiry and improvement in day to day teaching.

Should be planned collaboratively.

They will require time and other resources. Don’t short-change yourself.

Driven by a coherent long term plan.

Evaluated ultimately on the impact on teacher effectiveness

Staff Development Concept Building

• Tell about the staff development experiences you have been involved in.

• What were the most satisfying learning experiences? (What did you learn? Why was it satisfying?)

• Identify your most frustrating experience. (What happened? Why was it frustrating?)

Activity

Staff DevelopmentProblems

Contemporary Staff Development Problems

Allocating staff development resources without knowing what, if anything, has been derived from the expenditure.

Viewing staff development as an end in itself rather than as a means to an end.

Initiating unguided and unorganized staff development programs.

Giving individual development precedence instead of linking individual, group, and system development.

Taking for granted that there is a close fit between programs and individual and group needs.

Failing to apply recruiting, selection, and induction strategies to find, attract, and retain the right candidates.

.

Assuming that correcting staff development problems will solve major organizational problems.

Lacking models to analyze whether programs produce changes; whether they were desired ones; and whether changes in performance met tar geted need.

Viewing staff development conventions as vacation time, as rest and recreation, as a hiatus in position demands.

Emphasizing program activities rather than facilitation of learning and resultant behaviors.

Precluding greater centralized control over the cost effectiveness of staff development

Optimum Conditions for Effective Adult Learning

• Adults feel the need to learn and have input • Content and processes bear a meaningful

relationship to past experience• What is learned relates to the individual’s

life tasks• Autonomy of the learner is considered• The learning climate is one that minimizes

anxiety and encourages experimentation• Their learning styles are taken into account

School improvement through personnel development is best accomplished within individual schools and school systems. Traditional practices do not

generate effective staff development programs.

The staff development process includes identifying needs,

establishing program objectives (including teaching methods),

and evaluating program outcomes.

Staff development includes individuals, group system and board member development.

Some material from the Florida School Leaders web site.

Richard P. DuFour was a public school educator for 34 years, serving as a teacher, principal, and superintendent. He served as the principal of Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois from 1983 to 1991 and as superintendent of the district from 1991 to 2002. During his tenure, Stevenson became what the United States Department of Education (USDE) has described as “the most recognized and celebrated school in America.” It is one of three schools in the nation to win the USDE Blue Ribbon Award on four occasions and one of the first comprehensive schools designated a New America High School by USDE as a model of successful school reform. Stevenson has been repeatedly cited in the popular press as one of America’s best schools and referenced in professional literature as an exemplar of best practices in education.

DuFours four questions about staff development

Assignment 8:Out of field teaching report

• Review the following:•

www.fldoe.org/profdev/approval.asp• www.teachinflorida.com/preparation • FS 1004.04 and 1004.85• Rule 6A-5.066• Discussion question and peer responses : Given an

out of field teaching report, identify and explain the various methods for acquiring Florida teacher certification.