What is Staff Development?
Staff development is the term that educators use to describe the continuing education of teachers, administrators, and other school employees.
Teachers need a wide variety of staff development opportunities. For example, a science teacher might need to attend classes to learn more about the content of the science she's teaching. In addition, she might need other types of staff development to learn better ways to teach that new science material. She might also need to learn more about classroom management techniques, how to incorporate technology into her instruction, and how to better address the needs of language minority students in her classroom.
The terms inservice education, teacher training, staff development, professional development, and human resource development are often used interchangeably. But some of these terms may have special meaning to particular groups or individuals.
Attending classes, workshops, or conferences is one way that teachers – and other school employees – learn some of what they need to know. But other types of staff development are just as important and, often, more effective than traditional sit-and-get sessions.
For example, when teachers plan lessons together or study a subject together, that's a form of staff development. A teacher who observes another teacher teach is also participating in a form of staff development. If a teacher is being coached by another teacher, that's staff development. Visiting model schools, participating in a school improvement committee, writing curriculum, keeping a journal about teaching practices – all of those can be staff development activities.
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