According to Dennis Sparks, executive director of the National Staff Development Council, recent changes in education have caused a paradigm shift in perceptions of staff development. Three powerful ideas affecting staff development today are results-driven education, systems thinking, and constructivism.
Asserting that "results-driven education requires results-driven staff development," Sparks said that the goal of staff development is no longer merely skills training, as it primarily was in the last decade. The goal today is to bring about changes in behavior that lead to improvements in performance. Just as student evaluations should focus on determining what pupils know and can do, staff development needs to focus on improving the performance of everyone who affects student learning.
To bring about such improvements, Sparks said, requires systems thinking. "You can't change just one thing." In staff development, he said, this means moving from developing the individual to developing the organization as well. Because any change in one part of the system—the district, the school, the classroom—inevitably causes changes elsewhere in the system, staff development is becoming a more coherent, concerted effort involving everyone who affects student learning, from administrators and teachers to custodial and support staff. It's more likely to be a critical, ongoing function requiring action research and strategic planning, clear expectations and skills training.
Consequently, staff developers are changing from "experts" to facilitators who help stakeholders by consulting and planning with them. "Most schools benefit from a supportive infrastructure," Sparks said, "people who can provide feedback, even be confrontational, but in a friendly way."
As classroom teachers move toward a constructivist approach to teaching and away from heavy reliance on direct transmittal of information, staff development is becoming more constructivist as well. This change is not easy, Sparks contended. Teachers need to collaborate with each other and with their students, to share their learnings and reflect on the teaching/learning process, he said. Staff development can no longer be seen as a frill involving training that's conducted outside the classroom; it must include multiple forms of "job-embedded learning" that focus on the school and take place inside the school building. Sparks recommended that no more than 30 percent of staff development pull teachers out of the classroom, and that 20 percent of teachers' work time be devoted to joint lesson planning.
