SETDA's NLI Toolkit 2003 - High Quality Professional Development


	1. Chapter Summary 2. Framework for Analyzing Models 3. Essential Questions 4. Matrix of PD Models 5. Position Statement on PD for Administrators 6. Promising Practices 7. Resources & Readings 8. Next Steps

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Chapter Summary

Objective

To assist state and district leaders in planning, implementing, and assessing high quality models for teaching and learning using technology.

Key Questions

What are the states' professional development needs?

What tools and resources should be developed to address these needs?

How can we ensure that these tools and resources are in alignment with the needs of the states?

NLI Work Group Process

The High Quality Professional Development Work Group members began their task by sharing their views on the needs of the states with respect to the formulation and maintenance of high quality professional development. Discussions reflected personal experience, as well as a study of printed materials provided before the group began its work.

Initial discussions revolved around questions currently being asked within different states about professional development and the kinds of tools needed to begin to answer these questions.

Work Group members separated these topics into four categories: essential questions that could be used to plan and evaluate programs and projects; a framework for comparing, assessing, and analyzing effective professional development models; a model with which to compare professional development programs and projects; and a statement in support of strong, sustained professional development for administrators. Each Work Group member selected one of these areas for further study and discussion.

The four subgroups worked through several drafts of proposed content for the toolkit. Because the topics were so closely related, subgroups sometimes combined for short conversations, sent a member to join another group briefly, and engaged in frequent report-outs to the entire Work Group. Through this process, the group further refined the topics. Each subgroup developed a resource for the toolkit, responded to feedback from the entire group to adjust and fine-tune the resource, and made certain that all resources were aligned with one another.

SETDA Tools to Assist States

The High Quality Professional Development Work Group developed tools designed to assist state and district leaders in planning, implementing and assessing high quality models for teaching and learning using technology. A discussion of the needs of the states, the resources available to them, and the existing professional development models led to the creation of four components of the tools provided here by the High Quality Professional Development Work Group. They are:

A Framework for Analyzing Professional Development Models, presenting a diagram that illustrates the interrelatedness of criteria useful in the evaluation of the quality of professional development models.
A list of Essential Questions to guide technology leaders in the process of reflective selection and design of professional development programs.
A Matrix of Models of Professional Development, useful in the identification of the salient characteristics of professional development models.
A Position Statement on the Professional Development of Administrators, stressing the urgency and the importance of sustained and focused professional development for school administrators.