Supporting And Sustaining Teachers Professional Development

"Tallerico empowers principals with her view that leaders matter and demonstrates how their influence is expanded when they focus their attention on high-quality professional learning that continuously improves teaching, student learning, and relationships within the school community." —Dennis Sparks, Executive Director National Staff Development Council "Although there are many resources for building administrators to learn models and implementation issues for quality professional development, few I′ve seen have compiled as handy a resource as this one." —Karla Reiss, Founder, Consultant, and Coach The Change Place Nurture teacher development through focused and realistic approaches! Although school administrators consider supporting and sustaining teachers′ professional development a priority, more pressing day-to-day imperatives often eclipse this goal. Supporting and Sustaining Teachers′ Professional Development specifically targets busy school principals who want practical suggestions for how to balance these everyday administrative tasks while encouraging teachers′ professional growth. Focusing on seven questions selected for their relevance to school administrators, this essential reference summarizes the practical implications of the latest research and theory on the topic of teacher development. Organized around three key elements of current NSDC national standards, this resource for new, veteran, and aspiring school leaders will illustrate how to: Emphasize research and practice Provide rationales that explain and justify the encouragement of professional development Link teachers′ professional development to student learning Interpret national standards for professional development and apply them practically Improve student achievement, retain highly qualified teachers, and ground school practices in sound research by learning how to encourage your teachers while remaining committed to your leadership responsibilities.

This text specifically targets busy school principals who want practical suggestions grounded in national NSDC standards for balancing everyday administrative tasks while encouraging teachers' professional growth.

"Tallerico empowers principals with her view that leaders matter and demonstrates how their influence is expanded when they focus their attention on high-quality professional learning that continuously improves teaching, student learning, and relationships within the school community."--Dennis Sparks, Executive DirectorNational Staff Development Council"Although there are many resources for building administrators to learn models and implementation issues for quality professional development, few I′ve seen have compiled as handy a resource as this one."--Karla Reiss, Founder, Consultant, and Coach The Change PlaceNurture teacher development through focused and realistic approaches! Although school administrators consider supporting and sustaining teachers′ professional development a priority, more pressing day-to-day imperatives often eclipse this goal. Supporting and Sustaining Teachers′ Professional Development specifically targets busy school principals who want practical suggestions for how to balance these everyday administrative tasks while encouraging teachers′ professional growth. Focusing on seven questions selected for their relevance to school administrators, this essential reference summarizes the practical implications of the latest research and theory on the topic of teacher development. Organized around three key elements of current NSDC national standards, this resource for new, veteran, and aspiring school leaders will illustrate how to: Emphasize research and practice Provide rationales that explain and justify the encouragement of professional development Link teachers′ professional development to student learning Interpret national standards for professional development and apply them practically Improve student achievement, retain highly qualified teachers, and ground school practices in sound research by learning how to encourage your teachers while remaining committed to your leadership responsibilities.

This comprehensive handbook synthesizes the best current knowledge on teacher professional development (PD) and addresses practical issues in implementation. Leading authorities describe innovative practices that are being used in schools, emphasizing the value of PD that is instructive, reflective, active, collaborative, and substantive. Strategies for creating, measuring, and sustaining successful programs are presented. The book explores the relationship of PD to adult learning theory, school leadership, district and state policy, the growth of professional learning communities, and the Common Core State Standards. Each chapter concludes with thought-provoking discussion questions. The appendix provides eight illuminating case studies of PD initiatives in diverse schools.

This open access book presents a comparative study on how large-scale professional development programs for teachers are designed and implemented. Around the world, governments and educators are recognizing the need to educate students in a broad range of higher order cognitive skills and socio-emotional competencies, and providing effective opportunities for teachers to develop the expertise needed to teach these skills is a crucial aspect of effective implementation of curricula which include those goals. This study examines how large-scale efforts to empower teachers for deeper instruction have been designed, how they have been implemented, and their outcomes. To do so, it investigates six programs from England, Colombia, Mexico, India, and the United States. Though all six are intended to broaden and deepen students’ curricular aspirations, each takes this expansion of curricular goals in a different direction. The ambitious education reforms studied here explicitly focus on building teachers’ capacity to teach on a broader set of goals. Through a discerning analysis of program documents, evaluations, and interviews with senior leaders and participants in the programs, the book identifies the various theories of action used in these programs, examines how they were implemented, and discusses what they achieved. As such, it offers an indispensable resource for education leaders interested in designing and implementing professional development programs for teachers that are aligned with ambitious instructional goals.

This comprehensive and authoritative book serves as the road map to your school's professional development journey. Written for principals, professional development directors, other district leaders, and teacher leaders, Professional Development: What Works shows you how to plan and implement programs that promote teacher growth. Full of helpful case studies, useful resources, and templates, this book guides you in creating an effective, job-embedded professional development program that moves ideas to action. Special Features in this Revised Edition: Revised discussion on supporting and providing learning opportunities for adults New "Cases from the Field" and "Notes from the Field" amplify best practices and serve to narrow the gap between research and practice Updated and expanded coverage of professional job-embedded learning help leaders keep pace with advancements Suggested readings support digging deeper into topical areas found within the chapters.

This book focuses on sustaining communities of practice in primary and secondary schools in Australia and internationally for the professional learning of all teachers, and particularly, early career teachers. Informed by the communities of practice research of Wenger-Trayner, it shows what factors are conductive to the sustainability of communities of practice, drawing particularly on a case study of an Australian regional secondary school, and explores how it has sustained support particularly for early career teachers over a three-year period. The first chapters of the book provide longitudinal perspectives using qualitative data and include perspectives from a variety of stakeholders, including the principal, the professional learning coordinator and the early career teachers who have experienced the school’s Communities of practice over three or more years. It offers practical suggestions on how to implement and improve communities of practice in schools and highlights the increasing importance of online communities to support early career teachers. Policy-makers, school principals, teacher educators and teaching practitioners find the book useful for implementing and sustaining communities of practice in schools. Subsequent chapters explore the value of online communities, such as Twitter communities; the role of collegial support networks in supporting early career teachers in Flemish primary education; and professional learning in Northern Ireland pre- and in-service teacher networked communities.

Provides specific information on how to transform schools into results-oriented professional learning communities, describing the best practices that have been used by schools nationwide.

Teachers are the most important single element of the education system but what does it take to create high quality teachers in today’s world? Around the world, countries are struggling to understand how to change their schools to meet global demands. International comparisons have shown that schools in Finland lead the league tables, but why is this, what new policies and practices in teacher education have they developed and how do they support the changes? A number of European and Asian countries also top the list when it comes to providing high quality teacher education, but there is little information about what and how they are doing the work and how they have made changes. The leading international contributors to this book describe the systemic policies and practices of teacher education in eight high-achieving countries and how they are dealing with teacher quality, equity, and the changing global society. Among the countries that are doing well – Finland, Singapore, the Netherlands, the UK, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and the USA – there is an interesting diversity of policies and practices that support their changes in education, including: emphasis on the preparation, induction, support and assessment of new teachers focus on teacher retention, teachers’ professional knowledge and continuing professional development curriculum change and critical policies. In addition the chapters highlight the local cultural imperatives that influence and shape the preparation of quality teachers and make change both possible and problematic. Teacher Education Around the World examines what can be learned from the different countries, what policies and practices seem transferable; and which seem embedded in the particulars of the culture of the country. It describe themes that cut across all the countries, documenting not only what they are, but how the countries go about supporting and sustaining changes in teacher education. This book will prove itself an absolute essential for all those involved in teacher education, teaching and educational policy.