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Proposal for Professional Development Katherine Halliday. Background Information : Established as a small district for surrounding rural towns in 1967 T owns developed with time and the school district grew exponentially - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Proposal for Professional Development
Katherine Halliday
Background Information:
Established as a small district for surrounding rural towns in 1967
Towns developed with time and the school district grew exponentially
Two of the larger towns in the district are now considered suburban, while RSD’s rural roots still remain
Raider School District Information
Schools:
Student body contains approximately 7,300 students
Ten schools within the district:
4 elementary schools 2 upper elementary schools 1 - 7/8 middle school 1- 9/10 intermediate high school 1 - 11/12 senior high school 1 cyber school
Raider School District Information
High Schools:
9-12 student body consists of approximately 2,200 students
10 mathematics teachers at intermediate high school
9 math teachers at senior high school
The following mathematics courses are offered at both:
Algebra 1 Geometry Algebra 2 Algebra 3 Trigonometry Pre-Calculus with Trigonometry Introductory Statistics, Personal Finance College in High School (CHS) and Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics CHS and AP Calculus
There are also various honors courses available to students.
Raider School District Information
PSSA Data: In the past eight years, RSD’s 11th Grade Math PSSA
scores have increased; however, they have reached a plateau in the most recent five years:
Raider School District Information
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120.0%
10.0%20.0%30.0%40.0%50.0%60.0%70.0%80.0%90.0%
100.0%
RSD 11th Grade Math PSSA Pro-ficiency
56.1% 59.5%64.1% 69.1% 71.2% 71.3% 72.2% 71.0%
Students’ math achievement has not significantly increased in the past five years
Raider Senior High School would like their students to:
Increase their proficiency level on the PA math assessment (Keystone’s Exams)
Shift from below basic or basic to proficient or advanced
Shift from proficient to advanced
Student Needs
Raider Senior High School teachers adjusted their curricula to focus on state standards (linked to the increase from 2005 – 2007)
Math teachers as a whole have not enhanced their instructional strategies A few teachers practice excellent instructional strategies Some want to do well, but need support from instructional
leaders A couple of math teachers are set in their traditional teaching
ways and are not provided with feedback to improve
Grades 9-12 math teachers are in need of rich professional development to improve their instruction If teachers differentiate their instruction through discovery-
based and rigorous task learning, students’ math performance will likely improve.
Teacher Needs
Background:
No concrete math professional development plans at high school level in past 7 years
Spoke to Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Curriculum about future math PD plans
9 – 12 math teachers will pilot a PD plan similar to the effective math plan at elementary levels next school year
Current Professional Development Plan
Elementary Math PD Plan: An elementary teacher working on her doctorate in
math education at University of Pittsburgh worked with Professor Margaret Smith to create a math instruction plan Dr. Smith - conducts research on characteristics of
math classrooms with high levels of cognitive demands
My colleague implemented Dr. Smith’s best practices into her classroom
Building principals saw the success of her instructional strategies
District administrators decided to implement an elementary professional development plan to incorporate the rigorous task and discovery-based learning strategies of Dr. Smith
Current Professional Development Plan
Elementary Math PD Plan (continued): District leaders researched math education
consultants to focus on rigorous tasks that foster differentiated instruction
Created a pilot group of teachers to receive PD in 2009-2010 school year Completed 7 half-day PD sessions, in addition to weekly
professional learning community meetings with their colleagues
District leaders measured pilot students’ growth against control group’s growth using NWEA and PSSA data and found significant results
Plan continued with 2 more PD sessions for the pilot group, and the remaining elementary teachers in district began the two-year plan the following year
Current Professional Development Plan
Elementary Math PD Results: The district also saw an increase in Math PSSA proficiency
levels year-to-year (not always statistically significant):
Current Professional Development Plan
Secondary Math PD Plan: Due to the success at the elementary level, Raider School
District decided to implement the PD plan at the secondary level Started with half of the 7th and 8th grade math teachers this
school year Half of the 9 – 12 math teachers will begin the plan next school
year
Current Professional Development Plan
2012 – 2013 School YearGroup 2 of K-6 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)
Group 3 of K-6 teachers beginning Year 1 of PD (7 sessions)
Group 1 of 7-8 teachers completing Year 1 of PD (5 sessions)
2013 – 2014 School YearGroup 3 of K-6 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)
Group 1 of 7-8 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)
Group 2 of 7-8 teachers completing Year 1 of PD (5 sessions)
Group 1 of 9-12 teachers completing Year 1 of PD (5 sessions)
2014 – 2015 School YearGroup 2 of 7-8 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)
Group 1 of 9-12 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)
Group 2 of 9-12 teachers completing Year 1 of PD (5 sessions)
2015 – 2016 School YearGroup 2 of 9-12 teachers completing Year 2 of PD (2 sessions)
Secondary Math PD Plan:
Every secondary math teacher will complete 2 years of professional development in math instruction
Due to budget constraints, district administrators may utilize teacher leaders to present professional development sessions
At this time, there are no concrete guidelines for the professional learning communities
Current Professional Development Plan
1. Hire external, research-based consultants to facilitate professional development sessions
2. Provide explicit professional learning community guidelines for weekly meetings
3. Require all students to take NWEA assessments in fall and spring semesters to measure learning growth of professional development plan
Recommendations for Improvement
1. Hire Researched Professional Development Consultants:
It is challenging for internal leadership of professional development to be successful (Crow, 2008)
Hiring researched professional development consultants helps relieve schools of their belief that they are doing fine on their own (Crow, 2008)
Recommendations for Improvement
1. Researched PD Consultants (continued): I suggest the district hire one of the researched math
consultants that have been used in our district in the past:
Dr. Margaret Smith Dr. Victoria Bill Dr. Diane Briars Dr. Melissa Boston Dr. J. Daniel Miller
Recommendations for Improvement
Researched PD Consultants (continued): These consultants will help secondary math teachers
improve their instruction through incorporation of discovery-based learning through rigorous tasks that foster differentiated instruction
Teacher instruction will improve
Student math achievement will improve
Student data will be collected to measure growth: NWEA fall and spring math scores PSSA/Keystone Exam scores Classroom observations of student participation and use of
math talk Other classroom data
Recommendations for Improvement
2. Guidelines for Professional Learning Community Meetings:
Coburn and Russell (2008) found successful results on teacher instruction when PLCs had structured guidelines and tasks
I recommend the district leaders work with the math consultant to create these guidelines and specific tasks for scheduled PLC meetings
Structured PLC meetings will hold teachers accountable to the new PD instructional strategies
Peer observations will help teachers successfully implement their strategies
Recommendations for Improvement
2. Guidelines for PLC Meetings (continued):
We should see more class discussions, hands-on tasks, and differentiated instruction in math, which will increase students’ cognitive development
Student growth will be measured through the same collected data from the previous recommendation
Recommendations for Improvement
3. NWEA Assessment Tool: Researched and utilized by RSD for past 10 years
All students in district take the NWEA in the fall and spring semester, except students taking honors or AP math courses The district’s previous focus was to reach out to lower
performing math students
What about our middle to high level math students?
Requiring all students to complete this assessment will provide teachers with baseline data to differentiate instruction and effectively plan tasks
Growth can be measured in the spring assessment
Recommendations for Improvement
Coburn, C.E. & Russell, J.L. (2008). Getting the most out of professional learning communities and coaching: Promoting interactions that support instructional improvement. University of Pittsburgh Learning Policy Brief, 1(3) 1-5.
Crow, T. (2008). Declaration of interdependence. JSD, 29(3), 53-
56. Retrieved August 28, 2008, from: http://www.nsdc.org/library/publications/jsd/index.cfm
Pennsylvania department of education. (2012). Retrieved
November 4, 2012, from http://www.portal.state.pa.us
References