The Board of Directors of the Louisiana Staff Development Council (LSDC) and the Louisiana Reading Association (LRA) believe that adult learning in schools can and should take many forms beyond the traditional workshops, courses and presentations by "experts." The National Staff Development Council defines staff development as the means by which educators acquire or enhance the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and all beliefs necessary to create high levels of learning for all students. We strongly support the concept of job-embedded professional development, which means that learning is embedded into the daily work routine, not scheduled after hours. This kind of learning is job specific, and designed to assist teachers in implementing best teaching practices. Job-embedded learning requires that participants plan and reflect on their professional activities and practice.
Staff Development that has as its goal high levels of learning for all students, teachers and administrators requires a form of professional learning that is quite different from the workshop-driven approach. The most powerful forms of staff development occur in ongoing teams that meet on a regular basis, preferably several times a week, for the purposes of learning, joint lesson planning, and problem solving. These teams, often learning communities or communities of practice, operate with a commitment to the norms of continuous improvement and experimentation and engage their members in improving their daily work to advance the achievement of school district and school goals for student learning.
Whenever workshops and conferences are used to provide educators with new information, feedback or support should always be provided and encouraged from a variety of sources, including peer coaches and administrators. Professional development without follow-up is malpractice. Unless appropriate follow-up utilizing coaching and feedback is provided, no more than ten percent of what is learned is implemented in the classroom. Transfer of practice is integral, because the more transfer occurs, the more learning becomes embedded.
For job-embedded staff development to be effective, leaders -- the superintendents, curriculum directors, principals, teachers, university faculty, school board members, community representatives and support staff -- must view their role as staff developers as a major responsibility. All leaders must recognize quality professional development and be able to articulate the critical link between improving student learning and the professional learning for teachers.
All educators need:
- to be active participants in job-embedded staff development initiatives;
- to empower and encourage teachers to take responsibility for their own learning and
- to participate in job-embedded opportunities for their own professional learning.
Quality professional development should be aligned with the National Staff Development Council's Standards for Staff Development, which are rooted in the belief that it is not only educators who should benefit from high quality staff development but also students. As much as 90% of the professional development that educators currently experience is only marginally linked to increases in student achievement.
A good evaluation design is imperative to determining whether or not staff development is making a difference in student learning. Unfortunately most staff development evaluation includes only the assessment of participants' immediate reactions to workshops and courses. Good evaluation design also gathers information on teachers' acquisition of new knowledge and skills, how that learning affects teaching, how these changes in practice affect student learning and how staff development affects the school culture and other organizational structures.
Job-embedded learning is not an event. "Learning will occasionally happen in workshops but most of it will occur as teachers plan lessons together, examine students' work to find ways to improve it, observe one another teach and plan improvements based on various data. Those of us concerned about teaching expertise must take leadership in designing such a system for learning." -Dennis Sparks, Executive Director of the National Staff Development Council.
Contents of this position paper are adapted from the following National Staff Development Council publications: The National Staff Development Council's Standards for Staff Development, What is Staff Development Anyway, and Learning. |
