Good professional development requires "constantly analyzing what one tried, what one accomplished, and then what one must do to make the next try more powerful," asserted Anthony Alvarado, chancellor of instruction for the San Diego City Schools. Speaking at the Cawelti Leadership Lecture, Alvarado made a powerful case for systemic professional development.
Photo by Mark Regan
"If you want to improve student achievement, you have to improve teacher expertise," he insisted. "Those who teach, or who lead teaching, have to become better at what they do. And the only way they're going to become better is by focusing their time and energy on improving their knowledge and skill base."
"This is not about going to a workshop and being motivated by a speaker," Alvarado said. "This is about improving the essence of teaching."
Visitations Are Vital
One professional development strategy that is "absolutely necessary," Alvarado said, is the use of visitations. "When teachers hear descriptions of a new practice, they want to see a teacher doing it—with the same [kind of] students that they have," he said. "You have to visit other teachers, other schools."
Visitations should be done for an express purpose, Alvarado emphasized. For example, teacher X should observe teacher Y at another school because that teacher uses word walls in a way that promotes exactly what teacher X is trying to accomplish. "A teacher should not visit a classroom for some generic observation; that is often useless," he said.
Teachers should make these visits in groups of two or more, Alvarado advised. "You need to be able to talk with someone about what you've seen." Further, there should be a direct connection between the visitation and implementation. "When you've seen something, when you understand it well enough, you should put it into practice immediately," he said.
Teachers should also build a connection between the visitation and their attempts to use the new practice, Alvarado said. "That connection is usually in the form of the practitioner who was viewed coming to work with the visitor, to give that visitor feedback on her try at implementation."
The conversation among those who made the visit about the quality of the implementation is also important. "Those people who visited and who are trying [the new practice] then share what they're trying with the rest of the faculty," Alvarado said. The result is "growing concentric circles" of teacher learners.
In addition to visitations, Alvarado advocated coaching and study groups as productive strategies for professional development. "Schools now have to be organized for the learning of adults," he maintained. "It is how well the adults are learning that determines how well the students are learning."