Author: Gail Anderson Title: Special Ed. Teacher Role: K-12 Classroom teacher Location: Bronx, NY Date: 10-29-06 Professional development that focuses on teachers and their needs should be an integral part of the way a school operates. That means more than just common planning times for teachers to meet during the school day. It also means affording teachers the opportunity to meet and discuss academic and behavioral concerns of their students during Professional Development days. This is important because it is often difficult to formulate an academic, and if needed, behavioral plan, for a student within a 35-40 period of time. 'Student Planning' during Professional Developent days would also allow the time to discuss more then one student. Students that are off-task, and disruptive, pose a serious concern for teachers in some schools. Affording teachers the time to fully devise an academic and behavioral plan for these students may alleviate the stressful situation in the classroom, and make it possible for teachers to effectively teach all students in their classrooms.
	Author: Jeff Cooper Title: Education Technology Support Consultant Role: Education consultant Location: Forest Grove, OR Date: 04-16-06 Electronic portfolios from day one and authentic assessment. Develop global project based learning and allow student input and investment in their own curriculum. Offer sustained online support and professional development for teachers both after school and during classtime using a variety of technological tools including Tapped In, a free professional educator's professional development collaborative which allows teachers to create safe and secure classrooms and student accounts.
	Author: Cristina Dagostino Title: Math Literacy Teacher Role: K-12 Classroom teacher Location: Hope Valley, RI Date: 10-16-02 Effective school leadership is the key to effective professional development. School leaders need to be lifelong learners and model this for the educators they work with. Real time needs to be given to educators within the school day, not just a 35 minute common planning time that takes the place of a prep period. Recognition needs to be given to those educators willing to step outside the box. Faculty meetings need to replaced by sessions that incorporate journal readings and discussions, looking at student work and sharing lessons, to name just a few ideas. Real change takes a lot of work and effort, but it is well worth it.
	Author: Ron Millican Title: School Boards Leadership Initiatives Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 06-26-02 Districts need to support the Professional development necessary to meet the goals. For instance, one city spent $1 million to provide common planning time for its ninth grade teachers to meet in teams to look at student work and progress together. What made a difference was how well the teachers were prepared to work in teams. That meant having professional development on how to work in teams and how to meet the challenges of forming a new collaborative group. Once that was done, teachers participated in professional development around looking at student work and connecting instruction to the needs of students. But that required more PD for literacy across the curriculum and alignment of curriculum to standards, which were more or less successful, depending on the capacity of the schools' leadership and of the teachers themselves. So the district will need to provide more time over the years as well as during each month. It takes more time and money than one might think.
	Author: Naomi Migliacci Title: Program Planning Specialist Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 06-26-02 Both administrators and teachers need to value professional development. From the district to the school level, administrators need to structure ways for teachers to collaborate. Once a belief system is in place, the school culture can change to accommodate the scheduling necessary to collect and analyze data, collaborate on their action research plans, and plan ways to meet student needs.
	Author: Robert Greenleaf Title: Professional Development Specialist Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 06-26-02 Individuals and groups of educators might consider examining student work through an action research process. Collaboration while exploring one's areas of concern regarding student learning can provide support for practitioners as they strive to improve their methodology.
	Author: Jennifer Borman Title: Research & Development Specialist/Higher Education Role: Research/tech assistance org Location: Providence, RI Date: 06-26-02 Structuring time for teacher collaboration is a crucial first step, but it's not enough to just provide time without offering other resources. These resources include training in collaboration, a cogent framework for joint work, books, materials, and expertise, and lastly, a purposeful set of expectations for teachers and students. To do this we recommend that teachers be encouraged to apply for blocks of planning time. This would be similar to applying for a grant in which teachers be required to submit a proposal describing the use of their time, i.e., who would be involved the objectives of their collaboration, and the resources they would need to accomplish their goals.
	Author: Julia Emig Title: Literacy Coach Role: Building admin/coordinator Location: Dorchester, MA Date: 06-26-02 One approach is to research and apply for grants to fund the time it takes for teachers to participate in collaborative inquiry groups. Leaders need to prioritize this kind of work and seek innovate models for scheduling to increase time teachers have for collaboration. Teachers need to buy in to the benefits of collaboration and looking at student work.
	Author: Michael Ferrance Title: program planning specialist Role: Research/tech assistance org Location: Providence, RI Date: 06-26-02 Some choices might include: 1. An extended school day that "creates" time at the end of the regularly scheduled day for these types of activities. 2. Freeing teachers during the scheduled day by relieving them of duties such as study hall, lunch duty, and hall duty.
	Author: Randi Kestin Title: Data Analyst Role: Research/tech assistance org Location: Providence, RI Date: 06-26-02 Plan into the schedules times for teachers to analyze student work and student needs. Incorporate that as part of the content that needs to be covered in the classroom.
	Author: fix seven Title: fix Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 06-26-02 build common planning time into the schedule so that teachers have opportunities to consult/share/inquire together.
	Author: Mary Anne Title: Knowledge Loom Project Manager Role: Research/tech assistance org Location: Providence, RI Date: 06-25-02 Not only do teachers need the time to analyze student work on a regular basis, but they need the know-how about what to do with what they discover. One good way to learn about things like this is to look at student data as a team and then exchange ideas about appplication of the analysis. Often, there are pockets of expertise that one educator informally transfers to another through these types of discussions. Time can be alotted as part of regular team meetings, whole-faculty meetings, assigned professional development days, brief before-school encounters, and the like. There are also creative ways of looking at how technology can support this sort of exchange, if a school has the resources and the inclination to explore a new way of communicating.
	Author: Karen Lepore Role: State admin/coordinator Location: Providence, RI Date: 01-30-02 School systems need to re-allocate professional development funds to individual schools for this purpose. Site based management is often talked about but seldom acted upon. Money needs to be given to individual schools to support this site based management.
	Author:   Date: 01-30-02 The structure and organization of the school year must be reworked so that some time for reflection is built in. It might be something like teaching for 10 weeks and then taking a break for three weeks to reflect and then continuing in that sequence. Clearly there would be major obstacles to overcome in terms of teacher contracts and parent objection to the change in the school year. The current system leaves much to be desired.
	Author: Eugene Bouchard Title: State liaison Role: Research/tech assistance org Location: Providence, RI Date: 04-25-00 Schools must rethink potential structures which can allow for a shared learning experience among practitioners. All too often, educators in today's schools are still isolated and shared inquiry/collaboration must work itself into the work day. Some schools have attempted to provide mutual planning time for teachers, but few have made provisions for in-classroom observations, debriefing of approaches used with students and "critical" friend/s networks. The issue isn't whether we should have job-embedded professional development, but how to consturct a delivery system that allows for teacher participation while not neglecting the instructi
	Author: Marilyn Miller Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 03-31-00 Tenured dinosaurs gotta go! Professional development has to even exist! Serve goodies-AKA Incentives- to get them there! Make a safe environment-user friendly, no humiliation allowed! Technology available, that means $$$$. Assessment outcomes for technology useage.
	Author: Brian Bartolini Title: Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 03-31-00 Professional Development in Continuing Studies/Education  Time: Need (graduate) teaching assistants to assume some of the teaching load, giving faculty more time to focus on deficiencies, OR hire staff dedicated to the study of teaching/learning ("faculty experts").  Money: Must invest resources for professional development. If new money was not available, money could be moved from advertising (especially in times of high enrollments)  Rewards: Must provide incentives to develop novel teaching/learning strategies  System: A series of interactive workshops would be sponsored and provided by the faculty experts. Faculty members will
	Author: Al Craig Title: Professor Role: University Location: Warwick, RI Date: 03-31-00 The admistration could incorporate the use of technology in the classroom as a tool for learning that frees up time for teachers to learn what students need and what they as teachers need to know.  Teachers could assess student performance via groupware programs as we do through Lotus Notes.  Peer collaboration can be used by teachers to understand what students and they need to know
	Author: Jina Minaya Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 03-31-00 Author: Jina Minaya (Higher Ed, Providence RI- University) Date: 3/31/2000 8:13:44 PM   The implementation of a professional development initiative in an institution of higher education presents a greater potential for failure than success for the following reasons:  1. grade inflation to meet an "expected" standard 2. lower expectation of students 3. students will in turn lower their own expectations resulting from understanding the institutional standards are lo
	Author: Mari Dias Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 03-31-00 The case we are looking at is UMASS Dartmouth. We suggest that one needs to look at criteria for tenure review, time spent on course development vs. other professional expectations/commitments. In order to free up time, more monies need to be allocated to hire more faculty members. Also, monies need to be spent to develop faculty development programs that will encourage faculty to embrace learner centered education, and value the issues  involved in the change. The union and the faculty senate need to get involved in the decision making process, as well as openly show their spport for this type of change.
	Author: Rebecca Florence Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 03-31-00 We work in a banking environment. Problem: Our reps. are performing below sales goals.   What can we do to assit our reps. in meeting thier sales goals?  1)We need to request training funds. 2)Discuss issue with the training dept. 3)Have an open discussion meeting with reps. to solicit information about what we can do to help. 4) Devleop a reward system for meeting goals. 5) Have an online "chatroom designated just for the sales group to discuss concerns, problems and success stories as they arise.
	Author: William Hurley Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 03-31-00 Once the strategic plan is determined and the objectives of the learning experience are identified, leadership and instructors must agree on the specific outcomes that are to be achieved by students.  A needs assessment should be conducted to establish what each student needs to know. Then we can decide on the methods necessary to bring the student to that level of knowledge.  Now we can decide what technology will support the teacher/ student learning paradigm identified. Then comes an adequate budget allocated to acquire that technology.
	Author: William Hurley Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 03-31-00 Tenure is not the problem. It is a red herring. Lack of leadership pervades educational administarion. Usually that is the real problem.  Too often instructors do not receive the support they need to do the job properly. A lack of willingness to put principles ahead of personal protection is frequently the cause. Many administrators follow the adage, "Don't make a wave!"  Let's try putting the right people in charge, not simply the politicians.
	Author: Melissa DaPonte Title: writer/editer Role: Research/tech assistance org Location: Providence, RI Date: 03-20-00 Action research can be a particularly meaningful way for teachers to grow professionally, since it enables them to experiment with possible solutions to real problems in their own classrooms and then measure the results. But learning and experimenting often involve lots of "failed" attempts. Is it safe for teachers to try things they might have to scrap?
	Author: Ann Koufman-Frederick Title: Program Coordinator Role: State admin/coordinator Location: Boston, MA Date: 10-19-99 How can we rethink the time issue and how can we use our time better to collaborate on understanding what students are learning and not learning? Not having the time to talk and think together about teaching and learning is the biggest barrior to providing effective professional development. When we learn how to utilize our networks better and when we reconfigure a teacher's day so that they have time built-in to meet with each other about student learning, we will begin to see more teachers designing learning environments, activities and assessements which fit their particular students better.
	Author: System Manager Title: System Administrator Role: Building admin/coordinator Location: Providence, RI Date: 10-06-99 This is a good illustration of how to make it work -- a train-the-trainer model.
	Author: Bob Greenleaf Title: Program Planning Specialist Role: Research/tech assistance org Location: Providence, RI Date: 10-06-99 Professional Development will achieve higher status among practitioners and policy makers when 1) those conducting the process/activity(ies) are highly skilled and informed; 2) data collection and analysis is a consistent, well designed feature of all development activity, and 3) connections can be made between the development exercise and targeted outcomes.
	Author: Jim Woodell Title: Lead Teacher Role: University Location: Brattleboro, VT Date: 10-06-99 Culture is the culprit. The change that has to happen is a BIG shift away from the culture of schools today. It's not just a culture of "covering" content--it's also a culture of hierarchy, misplaced power, one-upsmanship, unhealthy competition... (okay, so maybe it's not all that bad). The point is that it's a rare school that fosters innovation or collaboration by shifting the culture rather than mandating innovation and collaboration.
	Author: Priscilla Kotyk Role: Research/tech assistance org Location: Unknown, MA Date: 10-06-99 The over-arching structure of school prevents initiatives from taking hold. We are still modeled after an era that is no longer the model for our society. One way to have professional development/planning time is to have teachers work an 8 hour day, like other professionals in the work force. With this model, principals would be able to have planning time with teachers to match professional development needs to the teachers' evaluation (collaborative discussion) and follow up with teacher as to what changed for the teacher or the student as a result of the Professional Development experience.
	Author: Rich Ferguson Title: Teacher of Moderate Special Needs Role: K-12 Classroom teacher Location: Worcester, MA Date: 10-05-99 The time to meet with colleagues is of paramount importance. Put emphasis on common planning time. A program which includes parents would be useful.
	Author: Julie Nora Role: University Location: Unknown, RI Date: 09-30-99 Reduced class size: Having personally changed settings from a 26 student, turn-style (students entering and exiting frequently) classroom to a 10 student stable environment, I can testify to my improved ability to assess students and respond to their needs. Reduced class size and stable enrollment will allow teachers to take advantage of professional development.
	Author: Coonie Louie Role: University Location: Unknown, MA Date: 09-30-99 It is important to know that urban students may not have as much parental support as suburban students.
	Author: Cathy Lalli Title: Program Planning Specialist Role: Research/tech assistance org Location: Providence, RI Date: 09-29-99 A clear understanding of the life skills required by students in the workplace of the future is important for educators at every level. Since students will never remember everything that they are taught, it is more important in this Information Age to identify what information is needed and to know how it can be accessed.

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