Defining Professional Development

The National Staff Development Council does a good job defining the term “professional development” as a comprehensive, sustained, and intensive approach to improving teachers’ effectiveness in raising student achievement. It’s within its subsections where there is room for debate.

Section (A) states that professional development fosters “collective responsibility” for improved student performance. The flaw in this statement doesn’t lie in the hope of the statement; indeed all professional development should foster collective responsibility. The flaw lies within the reality of the teaching profession and individual school climate.

The majority of professional development that takes place is top down. The school (or Central Office) administration determines what the weaknesses are of the school (or the system) and therefore decides what professional development should take place. Professional development in general already has a set agenda; it is not negotiated by the faculty for most individual schools. Once the agenda is passed down many schools scramble to find someone to conduct these sessions; usually in-house, and usually last minute. When this top down approach takes place many teachers have already begun to “tune out”. They see these sessions as a waste, when they have so many other things they could be doing. In some instances they begin to resent the presenter if it is someone in-house who is asked to present on a consistant basis.

Section A, part 3 states that professional development should take place “several times per week”. When? Most school days are jammed with activities already. Teachers may have 4 planning periods for the entire week. Not nearly enough time to gather resources or grade assessments that may help their instruction improve or provide a consistent flow in their classroom. Several times per week sounds like a goal to reach, not to start with.

The NSDC’s definition isn’t without fault, but it is a good one to work off of. I would like to see language included that allows teachers to be able to decide *what* professional development they need. If schools are looking for genuine involvement and growth in regards to professional development and achieved student learning they need to let the teachers have more of a voice in deciding what the needs are. After all, it is the classroom teacher that has the greatest understanding of what the students need.

Understandably, school administrators have pressure to improve weaknesses in the school. But imagine if a principal listed a goal for improvement and allowed individual grade levels to decide how they would achieve that goal. Chances are it would result in more buy-in from the stakeholders. It may even result in achieving the desired goals of the school. It is important that the goal not be stated and then not revisited. There should be (at a very minimum) monthly follow ups, perhaps by individual grade levels sharing how they are achieving their goals. This would allow the grade levels a sense of individuality while at the same time allowing for overall growth of the entire student body. It would also allow for best practices to be shared by colleagues in the same building.