Professional Development in NSW Government Schools - Business Plan Example

Professional Development Plan in NSW Government Schools New South Wales (NSW) government schools are known for their excellence in education and enroll both national and international students every year. These schools offer international students an opportunity to study alongside domestic students in a safe, friendly, and multicultural environment. The schools impart education in science, languages, visual and performing arts and design through university-trained professional teachers. The schools are known for providing all students environment that hones their learning skills, encourages them to develop independent thinking and interact positively with the community. The schools believe that in order to turn their students into capable people fit for entering university and thereafter into excellent jobs high-quality education is a must. But over a period of time it has been seen that there is a disparity in performance and a passive achievement gap between local and international students, and even among local students. To increase the overall student achievement, the schools believe that the most effective tool they have are its teaching staff, who can further be groomed through effective professional development (Hadar & Brody, 2010a). Professional development is seen as a means to increase their capabilities for collaboration and teaming, apart from improving their job-specific domain knowledge. As such the need is being felt that adult learning both at the organisational and the operational level must be embedded in the structures developed at the central office. This thought is being deliberated upon because it is felt that the teachers have an important role to play in the overall development of the pupil. Effective learning the pupil deserve stems primarily from how learned the teachers get. In order to meet this expectation the professional development plan for the nSW schools sets two goals: Impart education in such a manner that every student's achievement level is increased. Reduce or completely close the performance gap between local and international students. To achieve these goals, this professional development plan identified certain areas that need focus. These are: Increase the rigor in curriculum and instruction Align students' academic standards with instruction and curriculum Use professional development plan to develop a teacher corps which is high-performing The professional development plan, thus, stresses the need for a curriculum audit. The need for such an audit also arises in the wake of the fact that Australian National Curriculum, which was adopted in 2012 after being on trial for many years, raises the expectations of all the stakeholders from Australian education -- students, teachers and parents. This is also to keep pace with the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) ranking of 2006 which has ranked the education system here as thirteenth for mathematics, eighth for science and sixth for reading. The ranking are among assessments done in 56 countries (Shepherd, 2010). The main aim of the professional development plan would be to increase student achievement, which will be accomplished by increasing the skills of teachers, and even support personnel and administrators. All of them will be responsible for the curriculum's effective delivery according to the long-term and comprehensive nature of the professional development plan. The plan has to be coordinated and focused. As of now there is a general consensus between various stakeholders that clear policies and direction are lacking in professional development and there is not the desired amount of inter-level connectivity in the same. To meet the challenges of the plans and lead it to fruition a Work Group will be formed, which will decide the number of years this comprehensive plan will be formulated for. The ideal length could be three years; each year and step coordinated by the territory and other resources. Furthermore, the Work Group will be guided by international and national research which, over the last few years, has validated as under: Academic accomplishments of students are directly related to quality teaching Teacher quality can be improved in education systems or schools through professional development The needs of the students can be met effectively only when teachers team up in dissemination of their subject knowledge and skills If classroom environment is to be improved, teachers would need to expand their practices each day Teachers will have to assess the challenges they face in their day-to-day teaching experience and find opportunities to improve To improve the educational standards of the students irrespective of the nationality and cross-cultural barriers, prioritisation, alignment and support is needed at territory, school and department levels In all, the professional development plan will ensure better performance across all student groups by: Driving it through the authorities and focus at the site Focusing on specificity of pedagogies and curriculum content required to teach effectively Bringing about a school reform by coherently linking professional development, assessments and standards (Hipp & Huffman, 2007) Engaging staff in active learning and teach them how to make snese of learning Providing over time continuous, sustained and intensive learning Supporting skills transfer to practice through observations, modeling, coaching and feedback Connecting with collaborative work from teachers with school-based learning teams and communities (Wei et al., 2010) Under this background the professional development plan recommends the following: 1. Professional development needs must be thoroughly assesed 2. The plan must be coordinated, implemented and evaluated from time to time 3. Professional learning activity participation must be tracked 4. School improvement plans must be designed, monitored and evaluated by incorporating student data which can help identify learning needs of adults 5. A consistent Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) model should be adopted along with instructional coaching model 6. Time need for professional development which is job-embedded should be identified and earmarked 7. Orientation must be devised and provided throughout the chain of professional development plan 8. The plan should be devised such that it is based on the participants existing skill-sets and expertise 9. The plan should be evaluated both summatively and formatively Director of Professional Development post should be occupied by a learned and preferably senior academician and he should seek yearly assessment of the progress made He should ensure a communication plan, timelines plan and activities plan should be in place before the program takes off. Professional Development Best Practices It is a rarity to come across a professional development plan which is coherent. The pan needs to be articulated such that it is completely focused. A professional development plan worked out on a specified path leads to clarifying allocation of resources, evaluations and expectations. In case of NSW schools the onus lies on all stakeholders to make sure that aims are clarified vis-à-vis both schools and the system. When such a synchrony is established the plan has its greatest impact on the outcomes that are desires; utmost important of which is a uniform academic achievement across all student population. The responsibility of the schools is to organise themselves in such a manner that all teachers have easy access to the learning aids and materials This professional development plan can be complemented by Backmapping Model by Killion and Roy (2009). This model is for planning result-based professional learning. The model is based on the premise that student learning goals are identified by school improvement plans, while educators are helped by professional learning to acquire skills and knowledge which helps them accomplish the goals meant to transform student performance. This is a 7-step model; each step leading to the next and finally culminating in improved student learning. Step 1 is analysing learning needs of the student. Step 2 is identifying the school, department, district, community or staff characteristics. Step 3 involves development of specific student outcomes and improvement goals. Step 4 helps identify learning needs of educators or teachers. Step 5 helps brainstorm research and work done previously on professional development strategies, learning programmes, interventions and strategies. Step 6 leads to the development of plan intervention, then implementation and finally evaluation. Step 7 implements, sustains and evaluates the plan. Once that is done, improved student learning begins. Time for the Professional Development As outlined above separate timings need to be allocated to the professional development. Results have been shown as positive when contact hours (from 39 hours up to 100 hours; average being 49 hours) over a period of 6 months to a year (Wei, 2010). The estimated time desired for a fruitful professional development time has been set at around 25 percent of total time available with a teacher. Estimation of this time period has been reached at through a premise that learning in a collaborative atmosphere normally occurs in the workplace and usually during workday, has a connection with real work of student learning and teacher learning, and generally includes teachers in their entirety at a school. Consequently, according to the plan, learning teams will get together every day and take up collective responsibility of all the students that they teach. Based on the content standards of the students, they will develop common assessments and powerful lessons, observe each other in different classrooms, do a collective critique of each student's work and ascertain what is the additional learning that they are supposed to make?. Since schools run on pre-defined timings, it might be difficult for teachers to create slots in which the plan could be implemented. The ideal way to deal with such a situation would be to either ask students to arrive late (and execute plan in the meantime) or ask them to leave earlier (and do exactly the same). Teachers can organise a common time for collaboration. In fact when teachers plan for this type of organisation, it naturally creates for them another chance to meet. In other words organising time to meet can be deemed as the beginning of the implementation of the professional development plan. Other crucial aspect of this organisation and implementation is how well it is going on in the school and the system. It is of vital significance that during collaboration models having been found as effective in learning communities get incorporated. The goal that the plan has to keep in view is that through professional development teachers are able to update their standards of knowledge both jointly and individually through enhancement of content and curriculum expertise, and use of strategies and skills. The teachers need to expand their repertoire of practices and knowledge base in order to make them engrossing to students for the quality education they are able to provide post-learning. Researchers have stated that when professional development is enhanced, it increases teachers' capability to make wise judgments, build their own and students' morale, confidence and commitment. Supportive elements for plan's success In order to be successful, the plan would need following elements to be considered by all NSW schools: Teachers realise that the success of the plan lies in its student-centric focus, which is high-quality learning and achievement School’s desire to excel in professional growth and learning with the ultimate aim of improving student achievement Adherence to job-embedded professional development with continual focus on best practices as evidenced by research and approved by the local government Teachers' willingness to be proactive, have risk-taking attitude and be willing ot embark on a continuous learning process Teachers' mutual respect for each other Uniform implementation throughout the territory; systematic in nature and suitably aligned Professional Development Plan Evaluation Evaluation of this plan will be based on logic model and theory of change. As a prelude both will help teachers 'look through' the plan in the sense what it will be supposed to do and how can the expected results be got from it. Evidence collection will be systematic at times so that effectiveness of the plan is determined. It must be noted that for most of the plans evaluation does not start where the plans end, but they do so as soon as they begin. The plan's outcome depend on its clarity of thought, processes that will be used in teacher learning, and use of evidence in guiding decision making. Evaluation process will take into consideration both qualitative and quantitative data to provide action plan for future and current set of recommendations (NSCD & SEDL 2003). Guskey's model (2000) will be used to collect information, assess adult and student learning and also the organisational support. Guskey's model divides the task in five levels. The first level gives an idea on adult reaction to the experience of learning. The second level measures this learning. The third level assesses the organisational change and support. The fourth level assesses adult learning's applicability, and the fifth level assess the change at student learning. Roles and Responsibilities Responsibility of the plan will be shared by every stakeholder in the system. The central office, as appointed by the territory, will be responsible for providing processes, resources, and leadership. Leadership has tremendous impact on student outcomes (Robinson, Lloyd, & Rowe, 2008). SIPs or School Improvement Processes will be required to need identification, implementation and monitoring and professional learning evaluation. Maps or innovation configurations (ICs) will be developed to match the task or evaluation standard with its method, program or a system. For example if the evaluation standard is "Desired Outcome for the Plan", the school staff will be required to provide impact data which can help evaluate professional development, collect data from the classrooms to check for the impact, use a variety of data to evaluate school-based programs, design summative and formative evaluation, and in order to be able to conduct ongoing evaluation it will be required to develop a comprehensive plan. On the other hand, the central staff for the same evaluation standard will be responsible for the development of leaders at the school level who will be able to conduct evaluations, and design formative and summative assessment methods to evaluate success of the program in the wider perspective of the whole territory. If the evaluation standard is "High Level Outcomes Perceived in Students", it will be the responsibility of the school staff to check for changes in students at the behavioural or learning level. Also this will have to be assessed in the whole context of how policies, processes, structure, organisation and culture of the school have affected the outcome. The changes will also have to be assessed in teachers while assessing the overall impact the professional development plan has made. Central office staff will be vested in the responsibility of providing learning experiences with regard to evaluations questions, data collection, multiple data sources, data analysis, methodology used, modes of strategy dissemination and effect of the plan on student achievement. Conclusion The progress in the field of education rests on the capability of teachers. Capability is a complex word that in case of a teacher blends skills, motivation, positive learning, support infrastructure and organisational culture and conditions (Stoll, Bolam, McMahon, & Wallace, 2006).. When teachers' capacity has dwindled, professional learning communities (PLCs) can hold key to uplifting the same. Implementations of PLCs in schools have been shown to result in sustainable improvement (Hargreaves, 2007). This plan provides a vision on how one such plan can be implemented in the NSW government schools. References Hadar, L., & Brody, D. (2010a). From isolation to symphonic harmony: Building a community of learners among teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(8), 1641e1651. Hargreaves, A. (2007). Sustainable professional learning communities. In L. Stoll & K. L. Louis (Eds.), Professional learning communities: Divergence, depth and dilemmas (pp. 181-195). Maidenhead, UK: McGraw-Hill-Open University Press. Hipp, K. K., & Huffman, J. B. (2007). Using assessment tools as frames for dialogue to create and sustain professional learning communities. In L. Stoll & K. Seashore Louis (Eds.), Professional learning communities: Divergence, detail and difficulties. Berkshire, ENG: Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education. NSDC & SEDL (2003). Moving NSDC’s staff development standards into practice: Innovation configurations; Volume I. Oxford, OH: National Staff Development Council. Robinson, V. M. J., Lloyd, C. A., & Rowe, K. J. (2008). The impact of leadership onstudent outcomes: An analysis of the differential effects of leadership types. 9096 Unit Outline Page 6 Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(5), 635-674. Stoll, L., Bolam, R., McMahon, A., & Wallace, M. T., S. (2006). Professional learning communities: A review of the literature. Journal of Educational Change, 7, 221-258. Shepherd, J. (2010). World education rankings: which country does best at reading, maths and science?. Available http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading. Accessed May 06, 2013. Guskey, T. (2000). Evaluating professional development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Wei, R.C., Darling-Hammond, L., & Adamson, F. (2010). Professional development in the United States: Trends and challenges. Phase II of a Three-Phase Study. Oxford, OH: National Staff Development Council. Read More