The concept of professional development has been a part of the public school system for years. Different ideas have come and gone and old ones have reappeared with new names and new twists. However, one thing is clear, the most salient variable in improving student achievement is not the brand name of the program but the degree of implementation of the program (Reeves, pg. 2). Effective professional development is not about the programs it is the people and the practices that make the impact and transforms student learning.
In the book, Transforming Professional Development Into Student Results, Doug Reeves discusses what is wrong with professional learning, how to create high-impact professional learning and most importantly, how to sustain it. In the early part of the book Reeves does an effective job of explaining several of the problems with professional development and as I reflected on my past experiences, I found myself guilty of some of the same practices. For example, Reeves explains that schools cannot claim to be “data driven” when they are guided only by evidence of student learning that reflects no more than a school or district average (Reeves, p. 22). In my early tenure as an administrator our school’s goal was focused on improving state assessment scores as a school. Unfortunately, we did not truly examine where each one of our students were excelling or struggling. Therefore, we did not differentiate the instruction to meet those individual needs. Our early results showed some growth but it was limited due to our narrow focus. As I have matured as an administrator and learned from my past experiences, I believe that I am much better at narrowing down the list of initiatives that I want my staff to work on. …show more content…
This laser like focus compliments the beliefs of Reeves but also falls in line with renowned educators such as Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker. In their book, Professional Learning Communities at Work, schools must limit and control the number of initiatives if they are going to make substantive progress (DuFour & Eaker, pg. 101). In addition to looking at the effect the professional development will have on student learning, I am also identifying how it will balance with rigorous observation of adult practices. As a new administrator at Shawnee Mission West (West) I found out very quickly that the Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD) is very competitive with the other school districts in Johnson County. At the first district-wide administrator’s meeting after the 2015 school year ACT results were announced one of the associate superintendents posted the scores for all to see and she simply said the scores weren’t good enough for the new standard at SMSD. This was an obvious wake up call for all in attendance and we quickly went to work on examining what we were going to do at West. As a group we identified three areas that we needed to quickly address with regard to improving student achievement. The first area we addressed was staff awareness. I was given the charge of communicating to the staff the importance of the ACT, strategies that could be used in the classroom and the impact that a students’ score on the ACT will have towards college acceptance and scholarships. Most importantly we discussed the connection between the ACT college and career readiness. This set the table for good professional dialogue and gave the staff the tools to talk to students about the importance of this national test. About six weeks after our initial conversation with the staff we took the next step by having every teacher take a mini version of the ACT. This hands on experience provided the teachers with the opportunity to see the process that students go through on test day and to recognize the important role they could play in preparing students for the exam. After the completion of taking the test the teachers were then asked to share steps that they would take to help students be better prepared for the ACT. This was documented and now as administrators do their walkthrough they are identifying these strategies in action. The final step that we took in this professional development initiative was to bring in Carolyn Devane of ACTPowerPrep.com. She worked with our
In the book, Transforming Professional Development Into Student Results, Doug Reeves discusses what is wrong with professional learning, how to create high-impact professional learning and most importantly, how to sustain it. In the early part of the book Reeves does an effective job of explaining several of the problems with professional development and as I reflected on my past experiences, I found myself guilty of some of the same practices. For example, Reeves explains that schools cannot claim to be “data driven” when they are guided only by evidence of student learning that reflects no more than a school or district average (Reeves, p. 22). In my early tenure as an administrator our school’s goal was focused on improving state assessment scores as a school. Unfortunately, we did not truly examine where each one of our students were excelling or struggling. Therefore, we did not differentiate the instruction to meet those individual needs. Our early results showed some growth but it was limited due to our narrow focus. As I have matured as an administrator and learned from my past experiences, I believe that I am much better at narrowing down the list of initiatives that I want my staff to work on. …show more content…
This laser like focus compliments the beliefs of Reeves but also falls in line with renowned educators such as Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker. In their book, Professional Learning Communities at Work, schools must limit and control the number of initiatives if they are going to make substantive progress (DuFour & Eaker, pg. 101). In addition to looking at the effect the professional development will have on student learning, I am also identifying how it will balance with rigorous observation of adult practices. As a new administrator at Shawnee Mission West (West) I found out very quickly that the Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD) is very competitive with the other school districts in Johnson County. At the first district-wide administrator’s meeting after the 2015 school year ACT results were announced one of the associate superintendents posted the scores for all to see and she simply said the scores weren’t good enough for the new standard at SMSD. This was an obvious wake up call for all in attendance and we quickly went to work on examining what we were going to do at West. As a group we identified three areas that we needed to quickly address with regard to improving student achievement. The first area we addressed was staff awareness. I was given the charge of communicating to the staff the importance of the ACT, strategies that could be used in the classroom and the impact that a students’ score on the ACT will have towards college acceptance and scholarships. Most importantly we discussed the connection between the ACT college and career readiness. This set the table for good professional dialogue and gave the staff the tools to talk to students about the importance of this national test. About six weeks after our initial conversation with the staff we took the next step by having every teacher take a mini version of the ACT. This hands on experience provided the teachers with the opportunity to see the process that students go through on test day and to recognize the important role they could play in preparing students for the exam. After the completion of taking the test the teachers were then asked to share steps that they would take to help students be better prepared for the ACT. This was documented and now as administrators do their walkthrough they are identifying these strategies in action. The final step that we took in this professional development initiative was to bring in Carolyn Devane of ACTPowerPrep.com. She worked with our