Medfield Public Schools

Professional Learning

Encourage educators’ intellectual

development

Educators are most effective when they

use their minds as active learners and
problem solvers.
National Staff Development Council

Content and Design of Professional Development

that “foster collective responsibility for

improved student performance.”
National Staff Development Council
  Professional Development
Defined...

 Staff development   The process of

improves the providing ongoing
learning of all opportunities
Achievement
students. & for teachers to
Engagement improve their
 
 
knowledge and skills.

     
 Context Standards
Professional development that improves the learning of all students:

 
• Organizes adults into learning communities whose goals are aligned
with those of the school and district.
 
• Requires skillful school and district leaders who guide continuous
instructional improvement.
 
• Requires resources to support adult learning and collaboration.
How Teachers Work Together

Professional development that

improves the learning of all
students organizes adults into
learning communities whose
goals are aligned with those of
the school and district.
 How Teachers Work Together

• Commitment to the norms 

o continuous improvement and experimentation
 
• Engage members in improving their daily work
o advances achievement of district and school goals for
student learning.
 
• Teams vary in size
o meet almost daily
o take collective responsibility for the learning of all
students
How teachers Work Together

• Ongoing
 
• Consistent
 
• Scheduled

 
    Problem
Learning Planning  
    Solving
 
Leadership
Professional development that improves the learning of
all students requires skillful school and district leaders
who guide continuous instructional improvement.
 Leadership

• Quality teaching in all classrooms necessitates skillful

leadership at the district, school, and classroom levels.
 
• Leaders recognize quality professional development as the
key strategy for supporting significant improvements.
 
• Leaders articulate the critical link between improved student
learning and the professional development of teachers.
 
• Skillful leaders establish policies and structures that support
ongoing professional learning and continuous improvement.
Resources

Professional development that improves the learning of all

students requires resources to support adult learning and
collaboration.
 
• Well designed and implemented professional development
is an essential long-term investment in successfully teaching
all students to high standards.
 
• A variety of resources are needed to serve many different
purposes of professional development.
 Process Standards
Professional development that improves the learning of all students:

• Uses disaggregated student data to determine adult learning priorities,

monitor progress, and help sustain continuous improvement.
 
• Uses multiple sources of information to guide improvement and demonstrate
its impact. 
 
• Prepares educators to apply research to decision making. 
 
• Uses learning strategies appropriate to the intended goal. 
 
• Applies knowledge about human learning and change. 
 
• Provides educators with the knowledge and skills to collaborate.
Data Driven
 
Professional development that improves the learning of all students
using disaggregated student data to determine adult learning
priorities, monitor progress, and help sustain continuous
improvement.
• Analyzing data and developing goals helps to determine the content of the
teacher's professional development for instruction, curriculum, or
assessment.
 
• The use of data in staff development efforts needs to be measureable in
order to see if its effective.
 
• In order to sustain momentum, teachers need to see improvement in
student learning as a result of staff development.
 
• Carefully examining student work is in itself a means of staff development.
 
 
Data Driven
Professional development that uses data from various
sources to drive their decisions helps to provide meaningful
guidance to both teachers and administrators.
 
Evaluation
The purpose of evaluation is to show evidence or judge
whether or not professional development has been worthy
of the time, effort, and money spent on it.
 
Different groups require different measureable evidence:
 
• Participants need to know if student learning improved due to effective
professional development.
 
• Professional development planners and administrators need evidence
that staff development is making a difference.
 
• School boards and legislators want to know if their investment is paying
off.
 
 
 
Research-Based
   
• Staff development that improves
the learning of all students:
prepares educators to apply
research to decision making.
 
• Teachers and administrators are
informed of the latest educational
research when selecting content
and professional learning
processes.
Research-Based
Due to the fact it can become confusing for educators to select research-
based improvements because of varying opinions among researchers, it is
important to have teams of teachers and administrators study the
research that supports instructional improvement or whole-school reforms
through:
 
o Reading research reports
o Talking with researchers on the telephone or inviting them to the
school
o Visiting schools that have adopted this approach
 
Designing a pilot study is another form of research to use in determining
the effectiveness of a program before the program is fully implemented.
 
o In order for the pilot study to effectively assess the program, it must
clearly outline the program's goals, methods, and indicators of
success. 
 Design Standard

Professional
development that
improves the learning
of all students uses
learning strategies
appropriate to the
intended goal.
Design Standard

It is essential that staff

development leaders
select learning strategies
based on the intended
outcomes and their
diagnosis of participants'
prior knowledge and
experience.
Learning
• Professional development that improves the learning of all
students applies knowledge about human learning and
change.
 
• Human learning is based on a common set of principles.
o Learning methods used in professional development
should mirror the methods we use to teach our students.
 
 
 Learning
• Educators must go beyond understanding new ideas for
their "face value", but instead strive for a more complete
understanding of its purpose, critical attributes, meaning,
and connections to other approaches.
 
• Professional development should provide various learning
styles, such as seeing, hearing, doing, or electronic
resources that meet the needs of all staff members.
 
• Educational leaders need to be understanding of the
anxiety and fear staff may feel when going through a
change and harbor a respectful and trusting environment
where these feelings can be communicated.
Collaboration Skills
• Professional development that improves the learning of all
students:  provides educators with the knowledge and skills
to collaborate.
 
• Organized groups provide social interaction that often
deepens learning and the interpersonal support and
synergy necessary for creatively solving the complex
problems of teaching and learning.
 
• While face-to-face professional learning is a preferred
method in collaboration, exploring electronic forms of
collaborating with teachers from around the world can also
be a vital method.  
 
 
Collaboration Skills
 Content Standards
Professional development that improves the learning of all students:

• Prepares educators to understand and appreciate all students, create

safe, orderly, and supportive learning environments, and hold high
expectations for their academic achievement.
 
• Deepens educators' content knowledge, provides them with research-
based instructional strategies to assist students in meeting rigorous
academic standards, and prepares them to use various types of
classroom assessments appropriately.
 
• Provides educators with knowledge and skills to involve families and
other stakeholders appropriately.
 
Equity Standard
Effective educators:
• Know and demonstrate appreciation for all students
 
• Establish classroom learning environments that are emotionally
and physically safe
 
• Communicate high expectations for academic achievement and
quality interpersonal relationships
Equity Standard
“Teachers' knowledge of their students is an essential ingredient
 of successful teaching.”
 
Professional development helps teachers:
 
• Understand social/emotional characteristics of students

• Provide strategies for tapping the unique learning strengths of each

student

• Use knowledge of their students' interests and backgrounds to assist

them in planning meaningful, relevant lessons
Quality Teaching
Instructional leaders and administrators must make teacher
content knowledge and skills related to curriculum, instruction,
and assessment high priorities.

• Ongoing professional learning and collaboration

• Provide teachers with data to assist with formative classroom

assessment

• Create a culture of innovation and continuous improvement

by regular classroom visits to observe instruction 

• Engaging in frequent conversations with teachers individually

and collectively about instruction and student learning
 Quality Teaching
. Student Success Use Student Success
appropriate
instructional
methods

Deep Apply various

understanding
of subjects
Quality Classroom
Assessment
they teach Teachers strategies

Participate
in rigorous
professional
learning
Student Success
Student Success
Family Involvement
Effective partnerships require leadership, a compelling
purpose for their work, and a set of mutually agreed-upon
goals.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Educators must be knowledgeable about various ways in
which families and community members can be involved
meaningfully in the affairs of the school for the benefit of
students.
Family Involvement
Administrators Teachers Technology
See consensus building with the Establish partnerships with the Provides teachers and
broader school community families or caregivers of their administrators with important
students tools for family involvement

• Communicate in clear, direct • Understand backgrounds and • Strengthen connections

language (both orally and in challenges of their students and with families and the
writing) their families community by posting
• Conduct meetings that balance • Communicate clearly and school news and
task achievement and respectfully with family homework assignments on
relationships • Demonstrate genuine interest in school web sites
• Clear about their own values the welfare of the child and family • Eases communication with
and beliefs and respectful of the • Conduct meetings that create a teachers by providing e-
values and beliefs of others sense of teamwork between  mail or voice mail access
• Convey authentic interest in the home and school to families
perspectives of others • Delineate ways for providing • Increases the availability of
• Listen deeply and honor others' support for a student's learning at computers to all students
points of view home by working with community
• Identify areas of common • Demonstrate ways caregivers organizations such as
interest may be involved in schools  libraries and churches.
volunteers or committee
members