The much-maligned one-shot inservice day may be falling to the wayside as staff development providers experiment with new ways to improve leading, teaching, and learning in schools.
To meet the needs of school administrators and teachers facing relentless pressure to reform schools and increase student achievement, professional development providers are turning to models of ongoing collaboration, relying more on technology, and even building state-of-the-art bricks-and-mortar facilities.
Clearly, the importance of ongoing training for educators knows no national boundaries. England's recently opened National College for School Leadership, which calls itself the world's "first national leadership center dedicated to the education sector," has made technology an essential part of carrying out the government's mandate to offer school principals across the country high-quality continuing professional development.
Collaborative Growth
In many cases in the United States, technology is used only sporadically and experimentally to deliver some aspects of professional development. Staff development providers seem more focused on creating long-term collaborative training models to produce lasting change in a school's teaching and learning. Regional education service agencies, the government-financed bodies that are the main conduit for professional development for educators in more than 40 states, are leading the charge and developing new models.
To meet the higher accountability and achievement demands of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, many agencies are moving to professional development programs that last the length of the school year, says Kari Arfstrom, associate director of the Association of Educational Service Agencies.
To help implement NCLB legislation, the U.S. Department of Education will be relying on such local training agencies to communicate the law's demands to school districts, Arfstrom says.
Arfstrom notes that U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige views educational service agencies as the "go-to guys"—the mediators who can help schools meet the demands of the new federal law. Yet not all of these agencies have acted in that capacity before, she says.
In a new style of professional development, agency consultants collaborate with district and school staff to establish benchmarks based on federal and state standards, then develop a program with phases for laying the groundwork, checking in mid-year, and holding a "big wrap-up" to digest and reflect on how it worked and how it can be improved, Arfstrom says. "It's that ongoing touch and feel that's needed for professional development."
Leadership and Collaboration
Like its counterparts across the United States, the Hamilton County Educational Service Center is trying to tailor professional development for variously sized school districts in its region. The center, in southwest Ohio, serves 85,000 public school students and 22,000 private school students in 21 school districts and the local Catholic diocese, but also works with school clients in other Ohio counties and nearby Kentucky and Indiana.
Hamilton is testing a new model of professional development that encourages school districts to be both proactive and collaborative in determining their specific needs. "We want to avoid having school districts calling us with a schedule of their inservice time slots and asking us to fill a gap," says Don Schmidt, director of the Educational Leadership, Professional Development, and Teaching Professions Center at the Hamilton service center.
For example, service center staff recently modeled classroom "walk-throughs" for deans (principals) at the four campuses of the Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development. Great Oaks serves high school juniors and seniors in 36 school districts through two-year programs for technological careers in health, automotive, agriculture, communications, and other fields.
During the walk-throughs, the deans and professional development staff looked for specific criteria they had agreed to promote in their schools. These observations provide "a series of snapshots about the building," Schmidt says. "When [administrators] put it all together, they have a completed puzzle or mosaic for what's happening in instruction, use of materials, and student engagement."
Such hands-on professional development and face-to-face interactions allow "the instructional staff to see the school leader as a collaborator and a colleague, rather than an authoritative figure," Schmidt notes. The experience helps deans make their critiques specific and encourages teachers "to do some reflection," he adds.
Technology and Timing
Embracing technology for professional development in Hamilton County has trailed the center's focus on sustained professional learning. Although school districts have not been pressing service center staff for online courses, the center, nonetheless, is looking for ways to blend face-to-face training with technology as an inevitable and positive development.
Technology can ease the perpetual time crunch and provide new options so "a teacher can learn without having to stay in the school until seven o'clock," says Dave Distel, superintendent of the Hamilton County service. Financing such ventures and convincing educators of technology's advantages, however, are continuing challenges, he adds.
To bring school administrators up to date on the practical implications of NCLB, the service center recently featured a Webcast of Ohio associate superintendent Marilyn Troyer talking about how the state will ensure that teachers are "highly qualified" to meet federal mandates. Three months later, the video of Troyer has registered about 131 hits, states Lynn Ochs, director of Hamilton's Technology for Learning Center. That's "not a bad number," Ochs points out, because the event was aimed at only a handful of administrators and Troyer's information is now reaching a wider audience.
Coordinated Efforts
In northeast Florida, school systems in five counties have banded together to try to realize technology's promise as a disseminator of professional development. The Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership is a state-of-the-art professional development facility built with $8 million in private and public funds to serve educators in the counties of Duval, Baker, Clay, St. Johns, and Nassau. Based in Jacksonville, the 49,000-square-foot center has focused its initial efforts on meeting the training needs of 7,000 teachers in Duval County for the core areas of literacy and reading, says Lynda Lewis, executive vice president for programs.
The privately run but publicly funded Schultz Center is now ready to ramp up use of a two-way video system to achieve professional development goals for all five counties. Recently, curriculum directors from the five school districts gathered via two-way video to discuss a collaborative plan to meet their state's mandate on certifying secondary teachers in reading instruction.
Through such technology, the Schultz Center has leveraged resources—the educators who share their expertise in reading certification, Lewis says. "This is really what will help us to be successful in addressing the needs of the five districts."
In its first year of operation, about 4,000 teachers and administrators came to the center for professional development in reading, writing, and technology instruction. However, using the recently established two-way video links to eight locations in the five counties, Lewis figures that about 1,000 more teachers will benefit in the coming months.
The counties and the Schultz Center will also partner with the Florida Community College at Jacksonville to train teacher leaders to develop online lessons aligned with state and national subject standards, says Lewis. The goal is to have sustained professional development with face-to-face, two-way video, and Web learning components.
The Schultz Center is increasingly employing technology as a tool to keep specific schools' training practices consistent with the models developed collaboratively at the center.
But whether professional development occurs in an online community, using video technology, or during face-to-face meetings, the principal is the linchpin when schools set up new collaborative processes to improve teaching and learning, experts say.
"The building principal has often been the neglected stepchild of professional development," says Schmidt. "But professional development won't happen for the instructional staff unless we focus on developing the school leadership."
