Reflections

PD not a quick fix for low-performing teachers

2010-03-17T08:03:58Z

When education leaders talk about turning around persistently low-performing schools, sooner or later the talk turns to what to do about low-performing teachers.ﾠProposals for how to address this problem may include closing schools, dismissing or reassigning teachers, and reopening the schools with a new, handpicked faculty.ﾠThis is a relatively straightforward "solution," but it is not always feasible.ﾠSome school districts have large numbers of ineffective or mediocre teachers; others are in sparsely populated areas without a ready supply of new hires.ﾠ

Aware of these obstacles, some education officials propose "professional development" as an alternative to replacing teachers.ﾠThe implication is that professional development is potentially so powerful that it can transform an ineffective teacher into one who can increase student achievement.ﾠIt's a seductive vision, but difficult to achieve.ﾠ

It isn't clear that education leaders who advocate professional development as a "fix" for low-performing teachers have carefully considered their proposal.ﾠThere are many reasons why some teachers are not effective.ﾠThe continuum of inadequate performance includes a wide range of pedagogical deficiencies and behavioral anomalies. It requires time and effort to understand why a teacher is not effective, whether professional development is a potential remedy, and how to organize a set of learning experiences that may significantly improve the teacher's performance.ﾠSuch a process should be serious and thoughtful; every teacher deserves that. ﾠ

Yet, invoking "professional development" as an antidote to ineffective teaching may be little more than a throwaway line.ﾠIt sounds like a reasonable approach, but implementing it is fraught with complications.ﾠIs a school system really committed, or able, to invest the money, time, and talent required to analyze the reasons for a teacher's lack of effectiveness?ﾠDoes it have the expertise to craft professional development that is responsive to individual teachers' needs?ﾠWill a school system support a teacher's engagement in a process of continuous, iterative new learning over time?ﾠHow will it assess the impact of professional development on a teacher, and what criteria will it use to determine whether the teacher is subsequently effective?ﾠ

There is no question that effective professional learning can help many teachers broaden and deepen their knowledge and skills.ﾠBut professional development is not a broad-brush remedy school systems can easily or appropriately apply to all low-performing teachers.ﾠFor professional development to have maximum impact, education leaders must understand what it can and cannot accomplish for specific teachers, with specific needs, working in specific contexts.

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Hayes Mizell is NSDC's distinguished senior fellow.

Professional learning needs assessment must be embedded in student data

2010-03-10T09:03:27Z

For many years in the field of professional development, we annually asked educators to identify their needs for professional learning. We used this information to build a program of learning experiences for teacher education within districts and schools. The thinking behind this was that by asking what people wanted, we would more likely meet their needs directly.

Unfortunately, the value of this thinking was flawed because needs and wants were confused. In my own experience, when I would ask teachers what they needed, they would respond with lists such as more books, fewer students, and longer planning times. These indeed were their needs. But I expected responses that included differentiated strategies to develop the writing skills of ELL students, or greater proficiency with project-based learning.

Needs are data-driven, evidence-based areas for improvement. Wants are wishes that describe what we hope for, and in many cases, are based on personal preference or desires. I want a Porsche; what I need is a form of transportation that will be reliable, efficient, and cost effective. In professional learning, I want what other districts have and the technique du jour. What I need is defined by what my students need to be successful learners.

All teachers deserve opportunities to pursue their wants, and many opportunities exist to fulfill those wants. Yet the priority for professional development investment is educator learning based on student achievement data. Asking educators, What do you want to learn? is redundant when analyses of data from multiple assessments of student achievement reveal gaps in student learning. Those gaps are the professional learning needs.

Needs assessments for professional learning are embedded in student achievement data. They continue to be refined by conducting research to identify the instructional practices and specific curriculum enhancements that have demonstrated impact on addressing those gaps in contexts similar to those where the needs exist. This process is what NSDC refers to as the Backmapping Model for Professional Learning.

Analyze student achievement data to develop goals for student achievement to know the specific knowledge and skill areas in which students are underperforming and which students are most often underperforming.
Understand the context in which those needs exist so that teacher, principal, school, and district factors that influence successful change initiatives are identified and ready to be addressed.
Develop clear educator learning goals that specify changes in knowledge, attitude, skill, aspiration, and behavior to ensure attainment of the student achievement goals.
Research professional learning designs, programs, and/or content to identify ones that have successfully achieved similar goals in similar contexts to identify core components to include in our program.
Plan professional learning, the implementation of professional learning, and its evaluation to ensure success not only in implementation but also in results for educators and students.
Support, monitor, and evaluate implementation of professional learning.
Assess student progress and reflect on educator practice to assess the effectiveness of professional learning before implementing the process again.

Whether the Backmapping Model is employed districtwide, schoolwide, or in a team of teachers, it stresses that the role of professional learning is deeply connected to the work teachers do each day in their classrooms, driven by the needs of their students, and measured in terms of results for students. It requires teachers to examine, change, and reflect on their content knowledge and instructional strategies with colleagues to refine and extend their practice throughout their career.ﾠ In sum, student-achievement needs define professional learning needs.

Joellen Killion is NSDC's deputy executive director.

Redesigned JSD includes online professional learning guide

2010-03-08T07:03:06Z

By now, many members have had the chance to see the latest issue of JSD. In the spirit of innovation suggested by the issue's theme -- technology -- we also used this issue to launch a redesigned magazine, including a few new features that we hope can help you make the best use of the content.

One feature I want to point out is a new Professional Learning Guide for JSD. Offered online only, these pages are designed to support team learning and individual reflection around the content in each issue.

We're curious to hear if these types of resources are what you need to make this a real professional learning resource. What else would you like to see? We welcome your feedback on how JSD can best be shaped to meet your learning needs.

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Tracy Crow is NSDC's associate director of publications.

Schools should establish PD expectations with teachers from day one

2010-03-04T12:03:32Z

When a school system interviews a prospective new teacher, each party has different interests. The candidate wants a job, preferably one that meets his or her expectations regarding salary, benefits, grade level, subject, school, and working conditions. The school system wants a teacher who meets certain requirements regarding pre-service education, certification, and experience. ﾠ
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The interviewer may be someone in the human resources department of the central office, or a principal, or both. Their conversation covers many topics, but the interviewer may fail to communicate a critical expectation. As part of the employment and induction process, school systems rarely focus on the prospective teacher's future development. There is an assumption that the teacher will participate in whatever professional development the school system requires, but this overlooks the larger issue of whether and to what extent the teacher is committed to his or her professional growth. ﾠ
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In contrast, imagine if every interview included the following statement:
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"It appears you have talents and abilities that can foster the intellectual development of this community's children. But you should be aware that we also expect you to develop intellectually. We expect that throughout each school year you will keep learning more about the content you teach and how to engage students more successfully in learning that content. ﾠ
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"We expect you to engage your colleagues in figuring out how to improve classroom instruction, curriculum, assessment, and results. We expect you to seek out and test promising new ideas from your colleagues and others outside your school and this school system. We expect you to pursue your own new learning aggressively, and to apply what you learn to help raise the levels of your students' academic performance.
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"We will support you, and periodically we will be interested in seeing how your intellectual growth is making you a more effective teacher. And if you ever have reason to believe your school or this school system is doing anything that gets in the way of your intellectual development or that of your students, it is your obligation to let us know about it. If you are not prepared to do these things, then perhaps you would be happier in another school system."
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When interviewing candidates for teacher positions, does your school system or school forcefully and consistently communicate high expectations for educators' learning? And does it subsequently reinforce those expectations with support and practices that encourage and enable teachers to engage in effective professional learning every day? Now is the time.

Hayes Mizell is NSDC's distinguished senior fellow.

Want to support new teachers? Immerse them in the collaborative process

2010-02-22T08:02:05Z

I recently sat in on a meeting focused on support for new teachers. I found myself wondering how traditional one-on-one mentoring and induction would change if NSDC's definition of collaborative professional learning were fully implemented within schools.

If schools that hire novice teachers have a culture of continuous learning where teachers work in teams on an ongoing basis, support for those new teachers would be different. They would be immediately immersed in collaborative practices, and become part of learning teams whose members support one another. Certainly novice teachers would benefit from further skill development and strategy expansion in their quest to become more effective teachers. Yet their learning would be enhanced as they engage in authentic work with other professionals.

As a member of a fully functioning professional learning team, a novice teacher benefits from the expertise of several experienced teachers rather than just one assigned mentor. The novice teacher engages in assessing student learning, data analysis, professional learning, instructional planning, and reflection with peers who are learning as well. From the beginning, the novice teacher and her peers gain deep appreciation of the value of collaboration and collective responsibility for student success.

While novice teachers may continue to have mentors who work with them one-on-one in skill development, there will be a shift from isolated learning on the part of the novice teacher to team-based collaborative learning. Coaches may replace mentors and assume responsibility for mentoring and team support, thereby exponentially increasing the support within a school so that all teachers, not just novice teachers, continuously learn and grow to improve student success.

As I think about what will change for novice teachers, I wonder too what other changes will be visible in a school when teams of teachers are fully implementing collaborative professional learning.

Joellen Killion is NSDC's deputy executive director.

Time for a professional learning paradigm shift

2010-02-10T08:02:49Z

The field of professional development has a profound need. It isn't time or money (though both are welcome). What we need is a new paradigm.ﾠ
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Many people think about professional development in excessively narrow terms. Educators view it as an episodic add-on to the school year. School systems treat it as a service peripheral to student achievement. Education organizations don't question its quality or results. Policymakers are not sure what to do with it.
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True professional learning is much more than an exercise in knowledge and skill building. It is a philosophy, a belief system, that to succeed in complex and changing education environments, educators must constantly seek, master, and apply new knowledge. Under this paradigm of professional development, no active educator ever exhausts the need for learning, nor is that need satisfied by intermittent educational experiences. There is always a need for more learning because the context and dynamics of public schooling change almost daily. An educator who doesn't continue to learn what is necessary to be effective soon falls out of sync with her environment, or is overwhelmed by it. We all know these educators.
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In principle, most education officials probably agree with this concept of professional development. On occasion, they may articulate it. But this approach to professional learning is rarely manifest in the day-to-day expectations and operations of school systems and schools. School systems passively yield to a professional development paradigm defined by the number of days prescribed by legislatures. New hires don't forcefully and consistently get the message that an important part of their job is continuous learning to improve their performance. Too often, a smattering of learning and no evidence of its use is an acceptable standard for what passes as professional development.
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The field of professional development must become much more vocal and aggressive in describing and explaining its new paradigm. More importantly, it must work harder to ensure that school systems and schools change what they do, not just what they say. NSDC points the way with its vision that every educator engages in effective professional learning every day so every student achieves. That is the most straightforward description of the essential elements of the new paradigm: professional development must be inclusive, constant, deep and productive.

Hayes Mizell is NSDC's distinguished senior fellow.

Report identifies key ingredients for school improvement

2010-02-08T07:02:36Z

Late last year, the Consortium on Chicago School Research published a summative report on the data it has collected on Chicago Public Schools over the past two decades. Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago cites five ingredients that work together to contribute to school improvement that leads to student achievement. These ingredients transcended changes in district leadership and in school reform initiatives, and the report confirms that working on any one ingredient alone is insufficient to produce significant and lasting results.

Not surprisingly, the ingredients are:

Strategic school leadership that focused on instruction and includes others beyond principals;
Deeper connection with parents and community that make schools open and welcoming;
Purposeful development of professional capacity including professional development and collaborative work;
Safe environment that creates support learning; and
Strong instructional guidance and materials.

Remarkably, while each ingredient contributes to some improvements in student achievement, schools that had all five were 10 times more likely than schools with strengths in one or two areas to see gains in student achievement in mathematics and reading. An Education Week article on the report notes how different these five ingredients are from recent federal policy recommendations for improving schools. They do not include notable policy recommendations such as replacing teachers, closing schools, added compensation, more stringent teacher evaluation, or even more student assessment.

Of particular interest to NSDC and its members is the ingredient on professional capacity. According to the authors, professional capacity refers to "the quality of the faculty and staff recruited to the school, their base beliefs and values about change, the quality of ongoing professional development and the capacity of staff to work together. Schools where teachers were highly committed to the school and inclined to embrace innovation were five times more likely to improve in reading and four times more likely to improve in math than schools weak on this measure."

This study confirms what NSDC advocates: Professional learning in collaborative communities focused on expanding teachers' content knowledge, efficacy, and pedagogy, improves student achievement. NSDC does not claim that professional learning alone will make the substantive and lasting changes needed to improve schools, although the report provides evidence that it does. NSDC knows that a comprehensive approach to improving schools is essential for transformative change. Its strategic plan calls for policies at the district, state, and national level, improved evidence about what works, developing school leadership, closing achievement gaps by increasing collaboration and professional capacity, and engaging thought leaders within and outside of education to advance the message of the importance of educator learning.

Joellen Killion is NSDC's deputy executive director.

Now you're talking, Mr. President

2010-02-02T07:02:01Z

Yesterday, President Obama unveiled his FY 2011 Budget Request to Congress. While many domestic programs received budget cuts or freezes in the president's proposal, education received a substantial increase.

The president's announcement was, however, more than a simple budget request. Rather, it was a detailed framework for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

What does this framework say about teacher effectiveness? The president is beginning to adopt NSDC's language. The budget request outline a new program called "Excellent Instructional Teams." Sound familiar? Taking it to the next step, the new program description includes the following statement: "promote collaboration and the development of instructional teams that use data to improve practice." I count that as a significant victory.

Our victory for changing policymakers' vocabulary is only the first step. We need to change practice and will have to fight hard to ensure that the new program envisioned by the U.S. Department of Education provides the right incentives for states, districts, schools, and faculty to engage in effective professional learning every day.
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M. Ren￩ Islas is NSDC's policy advisor.

Improved teacher evaluation only a small part of the PD solution

2010-02-02T11:02:30Z

Educators and policymakers have every reason to applaud AFT president Randi Weingarten's bold pledge to improve teacher evaluation systems. But this effort--which also calls for professional development to help ineffective teachers improve their practice--will address the needs of a very small percentage of the teaching workforce. It is time to also get serious about ensuring that the three million other teachers in our classrooms engage in regular, team-based, content-rich, and sustained professional learning that research shows helps improve student achievement. It's a good first step to take on cumbersome personnel procedures and provide support to low-performing teachers, but let's not let it stand in the way of taking on the bigger challenge.

We must ensure that all teachers have time and opportunities to participate in professional learning that promotes collaborative work and problem solving and strengthens teaching across grade levels and subject areas. The experience of high-achieving countries such as Finland, Singapore, and Japan reveal that this strategy works to improve learning in the long term, and reduces the number of struggling teachers in the first place.

I understand AFT's desire to bring attention to the need to revise the teacher evaluation system. And while professional development is a valued component of an effective teacher evaluation system, this effort should not deflect attention from what I view as the more important issue: improving professional development for all teachers so that all students succeed.

I support national efforts to improve teacher evaluation. Yet, in the national conversation, professional development as tied to the teacher evaluation process debate has become the target of extensive criticism. And while some teacher evaluation systems may be "broken," in many places the professional development system is not; it is actually responsible for producing higher results for students. In addition, I fear that the ongoing discussion of "fixing" teacher evaluation and professional development may lead people to believe that the only purpose for professional development is fixing poor teachers. How do we make sure educators and other stakeholders in the process recognize this is one small part of a much larger and more important professional development agenda?ﾠﾠ

Effective professional development is so much more than a remedial improvement process. In the best of circumstances, it serves all teachers, the school, and the community, and it ensures continuous improvement and higher levels of performance for all educators and all students. Let's not let the current attention toward teacher evaluation hijack our efforts to bring attention to what must happen to ensure every educator engages in effective professional learning every day so every student achieves.

Stephanie Hirsh is NSDC's executive director.

Dear Mr. Secretary...

2010-01-26T12:01:10Z

A teacher leader confided in me last week that she didn't feel well prepared to respond to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan when he directed the following question to her: "What should we do with the country's three billion dollar investment in professional development each year?" She expects to have another opportunity to respond to the question, so we worked together on her response, and we agreed we wanted to share it with others.
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Mr. Secretary: I believe the $3 billion dollar annual investment in professional development is essential to ensuring great teaching every day so all students meet their respective states' academic standards. Engaging in high-quality, intensive, and sustained professional development is the only way educators will be able to meet this goal. Unfortunately, previous year investments have not been targeted in ways that produce the greatest benefits for the teachers and students who need it them most. I hope you will consider redirecting Title II professional development dollars to help educators develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors they need to raise levels of student performance.

Here are three actions I ask you to consider:

1. Redefine acceptable uses of funds according to a tighter definition of professional learning. This definition needs to address not only the components of effective teaching but provide the time teachers need to collaborate and learn together so they can share responsibility for improving student performance across a grade level, subject matter, or entire school. I recommend a careful examination of NSDC's definition of professional learning. ﾠ

2. Allocate a portion of the dollars toward the development of the knowledge and skills teacher leaders and principals need in order to build and support collaborative learning teams and communities. Learning communities that impact student learning are only as successful as the leaders who advocate, facilitate, monitor, and celebrate their progress. ﾠ

3. Require evaluation that documents impact, expenditures, processes, and content of professional learning on educators' practice and student learning. Evaluation is essential if states and districts are to learn what processes and content are producing the better results for students. Evaluation requirements have been abandoned in the past when states and LEAs indicated it was too difficult and costly. However, several states and school systems have taken steps to evaluate their professional development approaches and used the results to strengthen their efforts and increase their results. ﾠ

Mr. Secretary, while there are alternative programs that successfully serve some teachers and some students, what I am suggesting will benefit all teachers and all students by systematically spreading good practices from classroom to classroom and school to school. It is my hope that you will give these three actions careful consideration. They will have the support of the majority of educators. All students deserve effective teachers; and all teachers deserve ongoing learning and support that will cause them to become increasingly effective.

Stephanie Hirsh is NSDC's Executive Director.

When the question is either/or, sometimes the answer is both

2010-01-20T09:01:40Z

In his book The Opposable Mind, Roger Martin, Dean of the School of Business at the University of Toronto, puts his finger on what he sees as a defining characteristic of outstanding leaders: "integrative thinking."ﾠ

Martin defines integrative thinking as, "The predisposition and capacity to hold two opposing ideas in their head and then produce a synthesis that is superior to either opposing idea."ﾠ

This is not a new idea. Here are just a few deep thinkers who've said much the same thing as Martin does:

Heraclitus: "The way up and the way down are one and the same."
Coleridge: "Poetry reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposites or discordant qualities."
Keats: "What quality [forms] a Man of Achievement & Negative Capability, that is when [a person] is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason."
Faulkner: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

What Martin calls integrative thinking is central in Hegel's philosophy and no doubt many other authors and ways of thinking that aren't on my radar screen. The fact that this idea keeps popping up suggests that maybe we should give it some attention. Martin's book helped me see that "integrative thinking" might just be an antidote to the quick fix thinking that is far too common in our organizational and (at least in my case) personal lives.ﾠ

It helps me to think of integrative thinking in a simpler way. When we are confronted with an "either/or option choice," maybe the best answer is "both." Here are a few examples:

Not safety or accountability, but both. Amy C. Edmondson, in a great article in the July 2008 Harvard Business Review, writes, "psychological safety does not operate at the expense of employee accountability; the most effective organizations achieve high levels of both."

Not fidelity or reflection, but both. Lucy West has written in Coaching: Approaches and Perspectives, which I edited, that we want teachers to have "mindful engagement" rather than "mindless fidelity." For me, this involves professional learning that is precise that also embraces teacher reflection.

Not ambitious or humble, but both. Leadership guru Jim Collins writes that the best leaders have a "compelling combination of personal humility and professional will."

There are many more examples, including non-negotiables and choice, (see Michael Fullan's Motion Leadership),or checklists and professionalism (Atul Guwande's The Checklist Manifesto). This little blog isn't the place to go in depth into all of those rich and nuanced ideas. However, for me, integrative thinking is an important concept to keep in mind. The next time we come up against what looks like an either/or option, rather than quickly trying to decide which option is the best, maybe go for both.

Jim Knight is a researcher at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. You can read his blog on instructional coaching, and download free teaching manuals developed by the Kansas Coaching Project, at www.instructionalcoach.org. His e-mail address is jimknight@mac.com.

Educators must draw clear lines between training and professional development

2010-01-18T07:01:19Z

In education-speak, there seems to be an assumption that "training" is synonymous with "professional development." It isn't.ﾠ

Yes, both training and professional development require study, learning, and practice. Both should increase a participant's knowledge and skills. But training is a process of instruction (usually direct instruction) to achieve a narrow, predictable result. Most training is limited in time and scope. It requires learning a sequence of skills, which, if properly executed, enable the learner to competently perform a particular action. Many different types of employers provide training so their employees will perform at levels necessary to sustain a business or organization.

However, professional development targets doctors, lawyers, accountants, and educators, among others. It seeks to improve their performance by engaging them in organized inquiry, analysis, discussion, and problem solving. Because the work of professionals requires judgment and adaptive responses to different circumstances, training alone cannot prepare them to address the complex challenges they encounter each day. In public education, there are myriad, unpredictable variables that make the work of teachers and administrators extremely difficult. Contrary to what many people believe, there are not by-the-numbers solutions to all problems of student learning. Clinging to the belief that there are such solutions, and that they can be easily taught through training, is responsible for a lot of stagnant pedagogy.

Training can serve a useful purpose, but it does not produce the insight and behavioral change educators can gain through effective professional development. This distinction is at the core of current struggles to reform professional development so it has greater impact. So long as practitioners assume training, information dissemination, and re-licensure requirements are the same as professional development, they will continue to engage in activities that have only a limited effect on the performance of either educators or their students.

Hayes Mizell is NSDC's distinguished senior fellow.

Professional learning for 21st century skills

2010-01-11T07:01:53Z

The buzz about 21st century learning skills for teachers and students is gaining momentum, with good reason. Yet parallel with the call for increasing 21st century skills are questions about professional learning for implementing these skills in classrooms. What kind of professional learning will teachers need to become 21st century educators? How will we equip teachers to use and teach 21st century learning skills? How must professional learning change to meet the demand for 21st century learning skills?

At NSDC, we have a fairly simple answer to all of these questions. The kind of professional learning needed to implement 21st century skills is no different from the kind of professional learning we advocate for all improvement efforts, especially when those efforts focus on teaching quality and student learning. Our standards have stood over time as indicators of effective professional learning grounded in research and evidence-based practice.

While the content of professional learning may vary, and the tools and designs used for learning may change to accommodate different disciplines and outcomes, the acquisition of foundational knowledge and skills, the exploration of assumptions, and the transformation of practice accompanied by adequate resources are the same whether we are striving for improvements in science, literacy, mathematics, or any other area.

Advancing 21st century skills requires substantial professional learning, especially for teachers and principals who will be responsible for implementing these skills. It should align with everything we know about effective professional learning--it should be intensive, sustained over time, standards-based, results-driven, job-embedded, collaborative, content-focused, with sufficient resources and classroom-based assistance to support implementation.

Becoming proficient in 21st century skills requires changes in content, skills, and attitudes that influence the content, processes, and context for professional learning that will transform teaching and learning. We are being called upon to take a stronger stand for effective professional learning if we expect 21st century skills to be implemented. That means using what we know about effective professional learning, and implementing it fully to achieve the outcomes we desire. Other major educational initiatives facing schools today, such as the implementation of national standards, differentiating instruction and assessment, implementing data systems to improve teaching, developing teachers' content depth, expanding principals' leadership expertise, and others require the same form of rigorous and effectiveness professional learning needed for implementing 21st century teaching and learning skills.

Joellen Killion is NSDC's deputy executive director.

Fixing PD's "respect" problem

2010-01-06T08:01:33Z

Twice a year, NSDC Distinguished Senior Fellow Hayes Mizell and I visit with our national advisors to explore issues relevant to the field of professional learning and NSDC's work. Recently we met with one of our advisors, Kent McGuire, dean of the College of Education at Temple University and a former assistant secretary of education during the Clinton administration. I want to share one of the topics from our recently completed session with Dr. McGuire. I invite you to join the conversation by responding to the questions with your own thoughts. Collectively, we will get smarter about how to market and improve professional development.ﾠ

One issue we explored we labeled the "Rodney Dangerfield challenge." Why is it that professional development does not get the respect it deserves? McGuire suggests that some hold the view that educators should learn all they need to know to be successful in their preparation programs. He suggests we combat this argument by turning our attention to other respected professions. Would we take our children to doctors who failed to keep up with the research in their fields? Would we contract with architects who were not knowledgeable on the latest technology and green methods?

McGuire also suggested we provide vivid examples of the kinds of research, information, and tools that teachers must continue to learn that are not part of traditional preparation programs. I know this problem is not characteristic of all school systems, and I want us to do more to showcase the systems and school leaders who understand why PD is vital and the actions they take to advance it. When these districts share their successes, I hope they report how their investment in professional development contributed to these results.ﾠIn fact, I hope they boast about their plans for ensuring their teachers are up to date on all aspects of the science of learning. These are the systems and schools all teachers and students deserve. Why do we continue to settle for less?

McGuire also suggested we need to tell better stories about the impact of professional development. He noted that within every community there is at least one school that at one time may have struggled with performance issues and today celebrates the success of its students. In most cases, these schools have a professional development story to tell. And these stories are critical to developing the case for building respect for professional development.ﾠIf you have one of these stories, I invite you to identify the school, the city, and the state and summarize the PD and its impact. I hope we collect hundreds of these stories and we use them over and over to spread our message. Together lets make sure PD gets the respect it deserves.

Stephanie Hirsh is NSDC's executive director.ﾠ

Promoting effective teamwork means laying a solid foundation

2010-01-05T07:01:33Z

Imagine you are the chair of a leadership team working on a new endeavor. The team is meeting for the first time, and you want to ensure that all members work together so the team is successful.

Here are what I believe are the statements that should guide the work of the team:

"Starting today, and as long as we we're together, we're going to work on developing productive relationships that are characterized by trust, respect, concern, and honesty."
"In everything we do, we're going to collaborate to capitalize on the great minds, experience, and talent in this team."
"The first topic of our collaboration will be the development of a compelling statement of purpose that will drive all we do."
"Once we have agreed on that purpose, we will be fiercely ambitious, focused, determined, and persistent in realizing that purpose."
"As we work toward that purpose, our work will be characterized by the following practices:
1. We will always be sure to ask the 'why' question.
2. We will make sure the right questions get answered.
3. We will develop effective processes for our work and we're going to trust those processes.
4. We are going to pace change effectively so that we maintain momentum but do not overwhelm the people we lead.
5. We will be out front in interpreting events, ideas, and data for those we lead."
"In order to be successful in our work, we will constantly engage in learning, and we will be sure everyone in our organization can do the same."

Together, these statements represent a commitment to shared responsibility and leadership that sets the tone for productive meetings focused on a specific purpose that drives the work everyone is doing.

Charles Mason is past president of NSDC. This post was adapted from Mason's distinguished lecture at NSDC's 41st Annual Conference.