PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Professional Development

Professional Development

Some educators have said that term has an operational definition. In article, key design factors in durable instructional technology professional development, author John Wells offers following definition for educators within context of technological age: Professional development goes beyond term training with its implications of learning skills, and encompasses the definition that includes formal and informal means of helping teachers not only learn new skills, but also develop new insights into pedagogy and their own practices, and explore new or advanced understandings of content and resources. Definition of professional development varies in school districts and educators agree that term is ever changing and involves use of technology. [This] definition of professional development includes support for teachers as they encounter challenges that come with putting into practice their evolving understanding about use of technology to support inquiry-based learning (p.2).

Professional development may encompass various characteristics such as goals and outcomes aligned to districts, relevant topics in trainings, opportunities for staff collaboration, development maintained by an on-site coordinator, high quality and professional training and evaluations to determine effectiveness of program.

James Polk, author of traits of effective teachers, states, “ need for the strong professional development program is well established in research” (p.2). Mr. Polk (2006) cites the recent study of factors contributing to three aspects of teaching process that, “teachers ranked professional development in top third of importance on each aspect” (p. 2).

In analyzing professional development plan of my school district, Richland County School District One, I noticed several issues that were identified by Mr. Polk. Mr. Polk outlined several problems associated with traditional in-service programs that are deemed ineffective. Mr. Polk (2006) states that:assumptions, such as periodic in-service being sufficient to develop new teaching methods and improve practice, teachers being able to learn by listening to the speaker, and professional ...