Professional Learning Application of Effective Chapter

The director of the assessment program must sit down with each teacher one-on-one as the teacher establishes goals for the year. These goals should be formal and written out, rather than merely established privately by the teacher. Then, at the end of the year, there can be a debriefing of the teacher participants, as well as an assessment of the growth of the class. This method of investing in teachers and allowing teacher more input into the structure of the assessment program on an ongoing basis is a transformational model in the manner in which it fosters change as a collective process. Teachers will also feel a greater sense of investment in a school which contributes to their growth as professional educators through mentoring.

Despite the resistance shown by the teachers to goal-setting, the school feels that this approach is fair, given its focus upon improving teacher quality and its lack of emphasis on students meeting predetermined benchmarks. Ultimately, what is controllable about teaching is the process of what the teacher does, and which must be of a high quality, while the factors influencing student outcomes outside the learning environment is more challenging to assess appropriately (Fenstermacher & Richardson 2008: 187).

The significance of this issue in relation to relevant research and literature

According to Le Fevre (2010) all school change must be built in a collective fashion (Le Fevre 2010: 72). At present, the change that has occurred in the school has been disseminated in a fairly top-down fashion.Although an outside structure must be imposed upon the program to be more effective, the potential for professional development must be emphasized for teachers to accept what they now regard as unnecessary paperwork and intrusion into their classroom Additionally, in setting goals for teachers, the administration must be more willing to accept feedback from the teachers themselves as well as relying upon outside empirical research.

References

Fenstermacher, G.D., & Richardson, V. (2005, January). On making determinations of quality in teaching. The Teachers College Record, 107(1), 186-213.

Le Fevre, D.M. (2010). Changing TACK: Talking about change knowledge for professional learning'. In H. Timperley, & Parr, J. (Eds.), Weaving evidence, inquiry and standards to build better schools (pp. 71-92), Wellington, NZCER….....