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School's out. It's time to learn!

Careful planning and follow-through make summer professional learning programs shine

By Karel Holloway

Tools for Schools, April 2003

Copyright, National Staff Development Council, 2003. All rights reserved.

Summer is the natural time for staff members to engage in high-quality professional development--a chance to learn about new curriculum or new instructional strategies. Summer gives teachers time to reflect on the learning without the immediate pressure of their classroom responsibilities.

But making summer learning a valuable use of time and money requires thoughtful planning and careful follow-through. Many districts have traditionally offered half-day or day-long workshops focused on topics that teachers were allowed to self-select. But, increasingly, districts are presenting week-long institutes devoted to district improvement goals in areas such as literacy, differentiation, mathematics, and more. For such ambitious and focused learning efforts, serious planning should begin as soon as one summer's sessions end.

"It's like a Broadway play. It's a lot of little details," said Jackie Simons, director of instruction for Mountain Brook Schools, near Birmingham, Ala. The district's professional development program won a U.S. Department of Education Model Professional Development Award in 2000. "You have to have a vision. You have to know what quality learning is for the 21st century. Then you have to model that so the teachers can go back and teach it."

Step One: Choose your planning team.

Like a Broadway play, good summer learning requires a group effort, with each member contributing a different talent.

Who serves on the planning team depends on the type of planning being done. For school-level summer programs, the planning committee ought to include teachers and building administrators plus the appropriate specialists from central office. Planning for districtwide programs might be done primarily by the district's director of staff development but still should include members of the target audience. For example, if the institute is focused on improving the communication skills of principals, then some principals ought to be included in the planning. If it's a workshop on introducing Algebra I into the middle school, then middle school math teachers should be involved in the planning.

Step Two: Look at the data.

Like all high-quality staff development, summer institutes need to rest on a solid foundation of student data. Even if a district or school has targeted a particular topic, members of the planning team still should scrutinize student data to pinpoint the areas of focus for the summer learning. For example, a district has identified a need to improve the math skills of its 5th graders. A careful analysis of test data shows that these students have appropriate arithmetic skills but they have difficulty with more complex problems. Hispanic students are having a hard time with English vocabulary, which makes interpreting written problems more difficult. Staff development can then be directed not to teaching general ways to improve reading instruction, but specific methods for helping struggling Hispanic students in mathematics.

Step Three: Set goals.

Be specific and be courageous. Use your data to set specific measurable goals for summer professional learning. A vague goal would sound something like this: All participating teachers will learn new methods of teaching higher-order thinking skills. Instead, write a goal like this: All participating teachers will assign and receive student projects that demonstrate use of higher-order thinking skills during the first semester following the workshop.

The more specific goal gives both participants and facilitators a way to evaluate what has been successful. They can hone and repeat what works the next summer and discard the less effective practices.

Step Four: Decide how to achieve those goals.

Once goals have been identified, the committee plans how they will be achieved. What skills do teachers need to learn in order to achieve that goal? Which specialists or teachers already in the district can be the instructors for this? If we don't have the expertise in the district, are there established programs through regional educational service agencies or nearby universities that can be used?

If a ready-made program fits the needs, offering that can be more efficient than planning a new program of your own. However, in making this choice, consider that time spent by your own staff to develop a program focused on your staff's needs will have long-term payoffs.

Step Five: Money and location.

After data has been gathered, goals set, and broad plans made, the planning gets to the nitty-gritty. Where will the sessions be held? When and for how long? Will there be a charge and, if so, who will pay it?

If a district is running the sessions, they are most often held in schools. The buildings are convenient and empty, but they may not be the best atmosphere. Because the meetings are close to home, there may be interruptions and participants may be tempted to come late and leave early. Building a sense of community also becomes more difficult.

Whenever the learning is extended over several days, finding an alternate location can provide many benefits.

"It's much more than the official sessions," said Gail Hirst of the Cattaraugus-Allegany Board of Cooperative Education Services in New York. "We have people running together at six in the morning. They are eating together. They are swimming together. Every night we have a social."

Hirst runs a week-long Curriculum Camp at a private retreat center. Classes are from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., but a lot of the learning comes from the intense idea-sharing. It becomes collaborative because people stay up all night talking about kids, she said.

That kind of program can be expensive--Curriculum Camp is $1,080 per teacher. But districts find it useful enough to pay for teachers' participation. In New York, the state reimburses the districts for most of the cost.

Less expensive off-site options include universities that often can provide room and meals for a retreat for a reasonable cost. Some bed and breakfasts provide ideal places for small groups to meet for a couple of days.

Most schools and districts find that if they offer high-quality programs, teachers are eager to come. Paying stipends helps, but it isn't always necessary.

"We pay $50 a day," said Pam Smith, executive director of community and organization development for the Richardson Independent School District near Dallas. "Hopefully, that will cover a babysitter and buy lunch."

Step Six: Plan follow-up.

Planning for follow-up after a summer offering should be done before the program even begins. Did they take the lessons back to classroom? Did they change something that made their teaching more effective? After some practice with a new idea, what more do they need to learn in order to further improve their work in this area?

"This is the hardest part for us," Smith said. Often follow-up is as simple as asking a teacher in the hall "How is that new program working? Has it helped students?"

The Dade County, Fla., schools has an annual two-week Writing Institute that includes a variety of follow-up for graduates. Participants meet twice during the year for a breakfast refresher "course" and the district plans half-day and day-long follow-up workshops during each school year. In addition, the district's 50 language arts specialists--all alumni of the Writing Institute--coach writing graduates as they put their newly learned ideas into practice. Each summer, Dade County offers an Advanced Writing Institute for graduates who want to deepen their knowledge.

"I really believe that training without follow-up won't work," Smith said. "If you don't provide some follow-up, the implementation will never occur."

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