Educational reform has brought increased prominence to the way society views public education. America’s schools are an extension of its culture; a culture whose face has changed and whose needs are different than its predecessors of the past. This paradigm shift in the country’s educational structure has brought about the evolution of accountability. Districts across the nation are facing mandated state assessments that have become the determining factor in a school’s success.
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 requires that states ensure the availability of high quality professional development for all teachers. As a result, districts are pooling a myriad of resources into staff development initiatives. Throughout the United States, assessments have become the underlying determinant of the success of schools’ professional development programs, thereby serving as the driving force for future school funding received from federal and state governments.
With that being said, professional development is being viewed as the key ingredient in improving schools in this country (Sykes & Darling-Hammond, 1999). Meeting the goals of mandates such as NCLB will require a great deal of learning on the part of practicing teachers, the vast majority of whom were taught and learned to teach under a different paradigm of instruction and learning (Thompson & Zeuli, 1999).
Structured professional development programs that facilitate teachers as they make the connection between their knowledge and skills they gain as teacher-learners is critical in building upon teachers’ self-efficacy and individual beliefs about their competence, as well as their resulting classroom practices.
4 comments:
Hi Stephanie,
The NCLB act has changed the educational world in ways never thought before. It’s purpose? mainly two, a) to institute high academic standards for all students and b) to insure that there are highly qualified teachers in every U.S. classroom. In terms of what is a “highly qualified” teacher, the act offers eight specific guidelines: http://www.ed.gov/admins/tchrqual/learn/tqstr/edlite-slide009.html
Professional development is a progression of constant growth through the participation in activities designed to enable teachers, individually and collectively, to enhance professional practices. Many times these are just an informal one time seminar but reality is, these don’t work. The acquisition on knowledge by itself does not necessarily generate skill and certainly does not equal practice. Education activities varies from day to day, therefore few spread seminars are not sufficient for providing educators with the necessary skills to be effective on a routine continuing basis.
When considering “high quality” professional development it is essential take into account that it must be systematically and sustained over a period of time. Such preparation enables educators to discuss, revise and apply educational theories. It is the consistent and ongoing evaluation of learned skills, strategies, and programs what makes it relevant and achieve results.
I believe professional development must:
• include evaluation of sources of information and the instruction involved in applying the lessons learned in professional development.
• be related to a complete change process focused on improving student learning.
• be ongoing, job rooted, and focused on student learning goals.
• be planned around collaborative problem solving.
Michelle
Hello Michelle,
As I read your post, I could not help but to think of the terms "relevant" and "meaningful." That is what professional development should be. When teachers walk away from a training, they should be able to say, "I can use this." Professional development must contain these constructs in order for it to be effective. In addition, teachers need time to collaborate, integrate and receive follow-up. Granted time is a factor, however, if activities are focused and streamlined to address the needs of teachers along with ample yet strategic usage of time, it can be achieved.
Thanks for sharing.
Stephanie
Stephanie,
I think that NCLB provided education with many new initiatives such as highly qualified teachers and a focus on instruction and designing it so that students accessed the core content curriculum standards and were taught the fundamentals- math, reading, and writing. There is a downside to NCLB and this is the penalties a district receives because they do not meet their annual yearly progress. I also do not believe that the school districts should be advertised in the paper. What really needed to happen in education was more federal funding to school districts in need so that the standards could be met by the lower performing districts which seemed to be the lower socioeconomic districts. It is wrong to penalize districts and not provide them the money to finance the programs the high performing and often wealthy districts are able to do. NCLB never put the meat (money) behind their words and the American public was duped. Our government should be responsible and stop the threats. Jeanette
Educational Reform
“Helping teachers make the connection between their knowledge and skills they gain as teacher-learners” is indeed critical. Not only is it critical to “building upon teachers’ self-efficacy and individual beliefs about their competence”, in my opinion, it is critical the furtherance of becoming a better teacher. I believe that high quality professional staff development that is meaningful, and whose content a teacher is able to implement, is valuable to the progress and growth of the educator.
Beyond the training and information sessions however, I believe that there must be an accountability system. This system should assist the teacher (some teachers may not know how to go about transitioning to something new), monitor progress, and further develop the new concept. Another reason I think this is important is because, some educators are so set in their ways of thinking and doing things that unless there is a (forced, if necessary) buy-in towards the training and its purpose, then the sessions would result in being looked upon as simply a meeting set by the district to fulfill mandated goals of staff development (looking good on paper).
From experience, I have seen many faculty members be present at and checked in on the attendance roster, but in actuality and by gestures, be far from the meeting place. In this case, what a shame, and what a waste of time. If “people” in education truly want to be an educator, then they should have an open mindset…one that is ready and willing to grow, develop, and make whatever positive changes that is necessary to continue to grow, in order to help students grow and develop, so that they are not, left behind!
Elect Lady!
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