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Sprayberry High School
Marietta, GA
School Type: Public
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School Setting: Suburban
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Level: High
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School Design: Traditional
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Content Presented By:
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National Awards Program for Model Professional Development
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Summary
The practice: Professional development should be primarily school-based and built into the day-to-day work of teaching.
- "Lunch and learns" -- brown bag sessions where teachers gather to learn from each other
- Learning Support Strategist hired for research-based teaching strategies
- Project manager hired to install and maintain technology in the classrooms
- Meetings with the administrative team, division chairs, departments, and various committees
- After-school courses on-site
- 30-hour course on Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences
- Two 30-hour courses on Robert Slavin's model of cooperative learning
When the student population at Spring Woods High School in Houston, Texas, began to change, the school's faculty decided to take action to meet the academic demands of a more culturally diverse student body. They began working with Margery Ginsberg, author of Motivational Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching, and focused on implementing a school-wide approach to change. Teachers, parents, students, and community leaders came together to form a leadership team to become site-based staff developers, mentors of instructional improvement, and advocates of continuous improvement. Teachers in discipline-specific and cross-discipline teams participated in work sessions, study groups, reflection groups, school-based institutes, and peer coaching. They have developed their understanding of motivation and culture, learned new instructional strategies, examined student work, and planned collaborative lessons. Through these job-embedded, school-based learning experiences, teachers have contributed to significant increases in student achievement.
This site also exemplifies the following practice(s):
- Professional development should provide learning opportunities that relate to individual needs but are, for the most part, organized around collaborative problem solving.
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