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Idea Bank:
School-Based Professional Development
Adapted from Taking Center Stage, California Department of Education, 2001, pp. 239-251.
The following list includes some of the specialized knowledge and skills needed by teachers and principals in middle school-based professional development programs. Each item provides opportunities for school-based professional development experiences that can occur in all-staff settings or in Professional Learning Communities. In some cases, coaches and mentors will increase the effectiveness of the learning experience.
What Constitutes a “School to Watch?”
At the beginning of a school year, the first staff meetings can be used to analyze school practices using the Schools to Watch—Taking Center Stage Self Rating Criteria (DOC; 413KB; 9pp.). The criteria listed in the rubric lead school team members through a comprehensive review of the school’s practices in four areas: academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, organizational structures and process, and social equity. The criteria are based on research and recommendations of the National Forum for Middle School Reform and the California Taking Center Stage recommendations.
Middle School Philosophy, Policies, and Practices
Because most formal credentialing programs do not offer a credential for teaching in the middle grades, most middle school teachers have backgrounds in elementary or secondary education. As a result, professional development should include a focus on middle grades education and its underlying principles. A deeply engrained, caring approach to students, together with high academic expectations, is a powerful formula for ensuring the success of standards-based education in middle schools.
School Mission and Vision
A school mission statement clearly states the basic tenets of the school’s educational philosophy and the way in which the school intends to translate that philosophy into daily practice. Standards-based middle schools share their expectations for student achievement with all students and their parents. The mission includes reference to what the school will do to help all students succeed. Professional development should include a yearly revision and recommitment to the school’s mission and vision.
Content Standards, Curriculum, and Instruction
California’s two most important professional development tools are the training for teachers (AB 466) and for administrators (AB 75). As members of the school team participate in these statewide training opportunities, they can bring back what they have learned to share with the entire staff. An understanding of the close relationship between content standards, instructional materials, and teaching practices is essential. Because the basic knowledge and skills required cross subject areas, all faculty can participate in school-site seminars that address generic issues.
Common Assessment and Reporting Practices
The development of a standard-based reporting system requires intense collegial cooperation. In addition, teachers in the same grade and content areas can work together to develop benchmark assessments and scoring criteria for common assessments. Familiarity with the appropriate California frameworks is essential.
It is also important to analyze student data on suspensions, subgroup progress, and perceptions about school climate.
Rubrics
The development of rubrics (scoring criteria) to assess student proficiency on performance tasks is a key component of teaching all students how to become proficient on the standards. Rubrics reflect professional consensus on the quality of student work relative to content standards. With consensus, the evaluation of a student’s proficiency becomes consistent from one teacher to the next. Professional development programs must provide faculty members with assistance in designing and working with rubrics. At staff meetings, teachers can learn more about using rubrics by grading sample student work and comparing the results of how each teacher scored the sample.
Monitoring Student Performance
Designing and using comprehensive monitoring tools for tracking student performance is yet another key element in implementing standards-based education effectively. The monitoring system allows parents to keep track of their children’s academic progress. In turn, the students in high impact schools receive frequent feedback on their performance. Record keeping involves not only grades but also evidence of student work that is available for inspection by parents, professional peers, and supervisors. Portfolios, exhibits, projects, experiments, or reports allow students to demonstrate academic proficiency.
Reporting Student Performance
Developing student performance reports differs from determining and awarding conventional letter grades. Although new reporting formats may continue to use letter grades, the meaning of those grades differs significantly for students and parents. Developing or adapting new protocols and formats for reporting proficiency in the core curriculum requires the intensive collaboration of faculties, close communication with parents, and a close working relationship with central office personnel. Professional development in reporting on performance levels should ensure comprehensive understanding of the differences between conventional grading and performance reporting. Other issues involve ensuring faculty wide consistency in using new reporting procedures and developing the essential skills needed to use manual or computerized reporting formats.
Developing performance assessments involves teaching teams and teachers of the same subject and at the same grade level. The generalized study of developing performance assessments, developing scoring rubrics, and identifying student exemplars (anchor papers) are considered a valid focus of professional development for an entire faculty.
Developmental Characteristics of Young Adolescents
An understanding of the developmental characteristics of middle grades students is essential to providing a developmentally appropriate instructional program for them. Intellectual, physical, social, and emotional changes are more intense during early adolescence than at any other period in life except early infancy. Knowing adolescent needs (see Chapter Two) helps teachers design effective teaching and learning strategies that will engage and motivate these learners.
Managing Classroom Behavior
Good classroom management is the foundation of good learning. However, a philosophy of teaching characterized by firmness, fairness, consistency, and a sense of humor is mere rhetoric without effective methods for applying that philosophy to the classroom. All teachers, but new teachers especially, need to revisit the tenets of effective classroom management. A teacher’s first year is often made miserable because of the teacher’s inability to manage student behavior and instructional goals effectively. As a result a significant number of teachers resign during their first three years of employment. And when good classroom management is lacking, the students and the well-being of the entire school suffer.
Beginning teachers require the support of other faculty and intensive supervision. Every effort should be made to prevent the teacher’s first year from becoming a threatening experience. Most teachers new to the profession can succeed if they receive needed professional help. Site-based professional development support programs can provide the basis for achieving that goal. And schoolwide discipline policies help to bring consistency to student behavior. A system beyond the classroom needs to be in place to support the teacher.
New teachers should participate in seminar-type forums, discussing their work, identifying challenges, and developing solutions. Those who lead the forums should offer support and professional guidance. Beginning teachers should be given ample opportunities to observe instruction being delivered in other classrooms and to have their own work observed and critiqued by peers.
Crisis Management
Crisis response training is available to help faculty members develop a plan so that everyone is prepared for emergencies.
Teachers as Mentors and Coaches
Teachers play different roles as mentors, coaches, advisers, and friends, and each of these roles requires professional skills. As coaches to students, teachers offer support, assistance, and friendship. Using explanations, demonstrations, practice, and feedback, the teacher as coach helps ensure that what has been learned becomes usable and provides a formal yet personal support system for students.
Like coaches, teachers seek to identify their students’ abilities, talents, learning styles, and motivation that lead to success. Effective coaches try to bring out the best in every student. They also work to foster cooperation and team effort.
Teachers also serve as coaches to other teachers. Teachers benefit from a coach’s support and nonjudgmental feedback about their newly acquired standards-based practices. Coaching represents a powerful instructional technique that can be learned and practiced in a formal program of professional development.
Effective Instruction
Many teachers make few if any modifications for struggling or advanced learners. They deliver lessons at a uniform pace in a uniform instructional approach that is ineffective for many students and harmful to some. Struggling to cover too much material in too little time can lead teachers to using a survival skill of one-size-fits-all instruction which allows many students to fall by the wayside.
Professional development focused on determining what their students need and how to meet those needs can help teachers avoid the “one size fits all” approach. Some students need more repetition of the material, fewer ideas presented at a time, clearer homework assignments, more time to read instructions and to look up new vocabulary, or more direct monitoring by the teacher. Others require more individualized instructional guidance, such as a re-stated explanation of what happened in an experiment or more time for independent, hands-on problem solving. Still others may benefit most from tutorial help or mentoring. Effective teaching uses a variety of strategies so that all students have an opportunity to learn.
Multicultural Education and Equal Access
Principals and teachers responsible for teaching culturally diverse students require specialized skills for working effectively with parents and students from those cultures. The term multicultural education encompasses certain fundamental commitments:
- There is value in promoting cultural diversity.
- Schools serve as models for expressing human rights and respecting cultural differences.
- Social justice and equality for all people is reflected in content standards and curricular materials.
- Schools reflect a deep understanding of democratic principles and the rights of all citizens.
Inclusive Classroom Teaching
The term inclusive refers to classrooms in which students with a potentially wide range of abilities learn together. Inclusive classrooms reflect standards-based education’s commitment to high academic achievement for all students. To be effective in such a learning environment, teachers use a wide range of instructional strategies and learn how to differentiate instruction through strategies that respond to students’ varied abilities and learning styles. Professional development programs provide opportunities for teachers to learn instructional techniques suited to the inclusive classroom. Professional learning also allows teachers to practice inclusive techniques and to interact with one another through peer observations.
Classroom Environment
If students have visual or auditory deficits, they may have difficulty in learning. Physical arrangements in the classroom can facilitate learning. Professional development can help teachers modify their classrooms in response to the needs of individual learners and to design room arrangements that facilitate specific learning tasks.
Learning Deficits
Helping students with learning deficits in a standards-based classroom requires patience, wisdom, knowledge, skill, and support. Opportunities for professional development can be provided after a benchmark assessments identify students with deficits. Professional Learning Communities can work with resource teachers and coaches to focus on strategies for these students. In follow-up sessions, teachers can report back on measurable progress toward standards and provide peer support. The goal of this professional development is to ensure that students with learning deficits move toward their highest level of achievement.
Prevention and Intervention
Prevention and intervention strategies are much more than random responses. Planning for the early identification of students’ difficulties, developing appropriate efforts to address those difficulties, and coordinating access to specialized assistance for students and parents are priorities for professional development.
Gifted and Talented Students
Gifted and talented education (GATE) students need a constant challenge to excel. While proficient is the target for most students, all students, including GATE students, should be encouraged to attain the highest level, which reflects excellent, thorough, and insightful work.
The same engaging performance tasks asked of all students should be sufficient for GATE students as they work toward the highest performance level. However, if a student is easily and conceptually achieving at the advanced level on most grade-level performance tasks, the student may need enhanced performance tasks and rubrics or challenges beyond his or her grade-level standards. Developing enhanced tasks and rubrics to challenge GATE students should be the focus for professional development teachers who have students at this very high level.
Scaffolding
Given the large number of students still developing English-language proficiency, scaffolding remains a dominant instructional tool. It is useful with native speakers of English and any student struggling to master the standards. Scaffolding may be used along the full continuum of learning—from acquiring basic knowledge and skills to understanding principles fundamental to a given discipline and the ability to use them in completing complex reasoning tasks. See more about scaffolding in Chapter Three.
Because scaffolding is complex, it requires intense training, collaboration, coaching, mentors, and peer observations.
Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English
Specially designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE) originated in earlier efforts to help second-language learners develop their English-language skills and simultaneously address grade-level content in the core curriculum. More recently, however, instruction exemplified by SDAIE has become increasingly popular in classes for students at all levels of ability in using English. The reason for this development is that large numbers of native speakers of English, in addition to the second-language learners, lack proficiency in academic language.
Interdisciplinary Team Teaching and Thematic Instruction
Interdisciplinary team teaching and thematic instruction are powerful tools for organizing standards-based learning experiences. Usually, interdisciplinary teams consist of two or more teachers specializing in different subjects who teach the same students within a common block of instructional time. Team members commit to working together to develop and teach interdisciplinary units. Their primary instructional objective is to focus standards-based content on specific themes. In successful interdisciplinary instruction the knowledge and skills associated with separate disciplines are used to allow students to develop a broader perspective about the major issues embedded in the theme.
Complex Reasoning
Another vital component of standards-based education is complex reasoning, which includes such skills as classifying, sequencing, drawing analogies, hypothesizing about cause and effect, comparing and contrasting, drawing inferences, evaluating, and summarizing. These and other comparable abilities are used in various combinations to solve problems, for example, or to conduct research, engage in sports, participate in performances, complete a work of art, or write original prose or poetry. Organizing instruction and assignments involving complex reasoning requires the teacher to have specialized skills.
Homework Assignments
Discussion about the goals and uses of homework is important for at least one staff meeting or PLC team meeting per year. When an entire staff shares consistent values about the use of homework and expectations about it (see Chapter Three), students understand that high expectations are for every student at the school.
Polishing and Refining Student Work
Students need opportunities to refine their work. Further, renewed attention should be devoted to the qualitative aspects of student work, such as neatness, accuracy, and completeness, and to the correct use of grammar and syntax in written work.
Professional development should focus on instructional processes that include extensive use of drafts, teacher commentary, and several revisions. When student work is evaluated, it should be measured against consensus-built rubrics with clear descriptors of performance-standard expectations. Students, parents, and teachers consistently and uniformly know “how good is good enough” and what needs to be done to do better.
Academic Literacy
In a high impact school, every teacher includes reading and writing skills as a natural support and extension of their own content areas. All teachers need familiarity with the English–language arts content standards for the grade-level student they teach. This establishes the rigor they should require from their students. Academic literacy requires competency in the specialized vocabulary for each subject offered. Teachers need training in how to help students learn the difference between fluency in social language and proficiency in academic language, where meaning is derived from the formal, often technical language of specific subject matter. See “How to Know a Good Adolescent Literacy Program When You See One: Quality Criteria to Consider” (Outside Source), Adolescents and Literacy; Reading for the 21st Century (Outside Source), and Beating the Odds: teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well (Outside Source).
Service-Learning
Teachers often need help in designing service-learning projects that connect youths to their communities while integrating academic standards.
Time Management: School and Classroom
The wise use of time is one of the most critical dimensions of effective school and classroom management because it maximizes the effectiveness of teaching and learning.
Professional development activities can help teachers identify factors compromising teaching and learning and develop options for resolving the problems.
Aides in the Classroom
The effective use of aides varies markedly among teachers. Many teachers are skilled in using aides; others are not. Often, the aides’ roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined. Because each aide brings his or her special talents to the role, effective teachers know and use those talents through specific assignments and added training when needed. To develop good working relationships, both teachers and aides need opportunities for professional development. Aides who support instruction need training to be well versed in the content standards for the classes in which they assist. Whenever possible, aides join in professional development opportunities.
Parents and Others as Community Volunteers
Parents, college students, and other community members who serve as volunteers need effective preparation and guidance. In the middle grades volunteers fill various roles, including those of tutor and mentor. Recruiting, screening, selecting, training, and supervising classroom volunteers are significant responsibilities. Staff who supervise volunteers need professional development in effective management strategies.
Teachers may also need training in ways to break down any barriers between the schools, parents, and volunteers.
Management of Classroom Paperwork
The ability to manage paperwork effectively—especially student assignments and grades— prevents burnout and allow teachers time to give invaluable feedback to students. Both new and experienced teachers can benefit from coaching, mentoring, and new technologies such as electronic grade books and scoring for benchmark assessments.
Lesson Planning and the Weekly Syllabus
Good lesson planning is essential to good teaching. Teacher training available through SB 472 (formerly AB 466) supports mathematics and reading instruction and planning.
Effective lessons in standards-based classrooms are derived from “backwards planning.” When teachers know what students are expected to achieve (selected standards) and the evidence needed to demonstrate mastery, PLC team members can determine ways to scaffold their lessons and student learning while focused on the standards-based assessment target.
Effective lessons include anticipatory sets: an introduction to the lesson to gain student attention and interest; statements of the lesson’s goals and how they relate to the standards; formal teaching procedures and necessary instructional materials; independent practice by students under the guidance of the teacher; and extended learning in the form of activities to be completed in the classroom or as homework.
Team planning meetings help teachers “work smarter” by sharing ideas or parts of a weekly syllabus identifying the content standards to be addressed and outlines of instructional activities and student assignments. The simple format provides information for communicating with students, parents, and administrators. Some teachers staple completed homework assignments and test results to each student’s weekly syllabus and file the information for computing grades and preparing for student-led conferences with parents. Some teachers post their weekly syllabus on their school’s web page or send it to parents. A weekly syllabus saves time, provides clear guidance to students and parents, and serves as an immediately available reference for a substitute teacher.
California Subject-Matter Frameworks
Teacher training available through SB 472 (formerly AB 466) prepares teachers with knowledge about content standards as they relate to instructional and assessment practices. The frameworks address standards, grade-level considerations, instructional strategies, assessment practices, accountability issues, and other essential aspects of standards-based education. (See Chapter Three).
Expanded Subject-Matter Knowledge
A deepening of subject-matter knowledge is essential if teachers are to hold students to high standards. To provide extended training in subject matter competency, the district can cooperate with an institution of higher education to combine the formal academic work of the college or university with the instructional realities of the classroom. Such programs should be designed to meet the standards required for academic credit. (See Chapter Six).
Instructional Technology
The field of instructional technology strategies grows daily, and offers many opportunities to enrich students’ learning experiences. Professional Learning Communities can keep team members and the entire school staff appraised about new opportunities to make lessons meaningful for the “Millennials.” (See Chapter Two and Three).
Book Clubs for Educators
Research findings repeatedly identify isolation and the lack of personal and collegial reflection as pervasive problems among teachers. Faculty members can add interest to professional dialogue by focusing on books whose themes have universal significance for educators. Many contemporary books from the business field, such as Good to Great and Fish, and education research such as Whatever it Takes have stimulated school team members to revitalize their mission and teaching strategies.
Professional Reflections and Considerations
Each of the preceding priorities requires reflective thinking. Journaling, sharing with a mentor or other trusted colleague, or delving into a good book are only a few of the possibilities available. Although the processes and insights associated with reflective thinking are often essentially initially private matters, members of Professional Learning Communities and school faculties improve instructional practice as they share ideas and insights. Many suggested “Professional Considerations” pages are linked to topic areas throughout Taking Center Stage—Act II. (For a complete list, see Professional Considerations in the A-Z Hotlinks).
Thematic Organization of School-Based Professional Development Programs
The following list suggest possibilities for organizing clusters of professional development topics around themes. Components of the themes depend on needs at each school site. The school site’s professional development council can play a significant role in this matter. The professional development topics listed throughout this section are not intended to be exhaustive. Many other possibilities exist and should be developed as appropriate.
Standards-Based Middle Schools
- Middle School Philosophy, Policies, and Practices
- Standards-Based Education: A Conceptual Framework
- Interdisciplinary Team Teaching and Thematic Instruction
- Inclusive Classroom Teaching
- Multicultural Education and Equal Access
- School Mission and Vision
- Professional Reflections
Instruction
- Standards-Based Education: A Conceptual Framework
- Alignment of Standards, Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
- Differentiated Instruction
- Interdisciplinary Team Teaching and Thematic Instruction
- Scaffolding
- Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English
- Multicultural Education and Equal Access
- Professional Reflections
Assessment and Performance-Standard System
- Standards-Based Education: A Conceptual Framework
- Alignment of Standards, Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
- Performance Standards and Performance Tasks
- Benchmark Assessments
- Polishing and Refining Student Work
- Generic and Subject-Specific Rubrics
- Scoring Student Work
- Reporting Student Performance
- Auditing Student Performance
- Professional Reflections
Student Diversity
- Developmental Characteristics of Young Adolescents
- Differentiated Instruction
- Learning Styles and Classroom Environment
- Scaffolding
- Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English
- Safety Nets for Students
- Inclusive Classroom Teaching
- Multicultural Education and Equal Access
- Professional Reflections
Classroom Management
- Content Standards, Curriculum, and Instruction
- Reporting Student Performance
- Auditing Student Performance
- Lesson Planning and Weekly Syllabus
- Managing Classroom Behavior
- Managing Time: School and Classroom
- Collegially Based Crisis Management
- Professional Reflections
Paraprofessionals and Volunteers
- Middle School Philosophy, Policies, and Practices
- Standards-Based Education: A Conceptual Framework
- Aides as Adjunct Teachers
- Parents and Other Community Volunteers
- Characteristics of Young Adolescent Students
- Managing Classroom Behavior
- Inclusive Classroom Teaching
- Professional Reflections
Curriculum
- Standards-Based Education: A Conceptual Framework
- Standards, Curriculum, and Instruction
- New California Subject-Matter Frameworks
- Expanded Subject-Matter Knowledge
- Deep Learning
- Complex Reasoning
- Professional Reflections
Teachers as Classroom Managers
- Parents and Other Community Volunteers
- Aides as Adjunct Teachers
- Managing Time: School and Classroom
- Managing Classroom Behavior
- Auditing Student Performance
- Lesson Planning and Weekly Syllabus
- Homework Assignments
- Managing Classroom Paperwork
- Professional Reflections