School Type: Public	School Setting: Urban
Level: High	School Design: Alternative
Content Presented By:
National Awards Program for Model Professional Development

Summary

The practice: Professional development should be primarily school-based and built into the day-to-day work of teaching.

• 100% of teachers spend three hours weekly on Professional Development (PD)
• Each five-faculty team has 500 hours to divide among its members for recorded PD activities.
• Teachers are absent due to self-treated illness on average 2.7 days per year compared to the NYC average of 6.2 days.

Educators at the International High School at LaGuardia Community College say professional development is "built into everything we do." Interdisciplinary teams provide the learning infrastructure for teachers. Each team consists of five teachers who teach the same 75 students. Teachers on the same team observe and coach each other, share best practices, develop, evaluate, and revise curricula, and jointly devise interventions for students who need extra support.

Three hours of team meeting time are built into each week. Typical meetings might include a discussion about how to help a student with reading problems complete a demanding research project, how to help students frame their own questions to explore in science experiences, how to use grant money to integrate technology into the curriculum, or how to upgrade a literature assignment to meet graduation requirements.

Although the teams are an important foundation, professional development is also integrated into other routines. For example, all faculty are required to present a professional portfolio (every year if untenured) to demonstrate continued growth and improvement. This process provides a valuable forum for sharing best practices. In addition, by serving on graduation portfolio panels at nearby high schools, faculty share curriculum and performance standards.

This site also exemplifies the following practice(s):

• Professional development should be based on analyses of the differences between (a) actual student performance and (b) goals and standards for student learning.  

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This resource is developed and maintained by The Education Alliance at Brown University. Seed funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Send comments to: loom@alliance.brown.edu