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Summary: June 6, 2002
Day 4 Topic: Professional Personnel Development
Moderator Ford introduced today's topic and posed several questions to
elicit participants' opinions about Professional Personnel Development.
Today's panelists were Harold Boger, Margaret Gaston, Betty Karnette,
and Arthurlene Towner.
Note: Postings on today's topic that appeared on the Web site by 8:00 PM
Pacific time are included in this summary.
What are the most important factors in attracting and retaining
experienced and qualified teachers? Are the answers different for
teachers in low performing schools? What should the state's role be?
- Participants suggested many incentives for attracting and
retaining teachers including: sabbaticals, job sharing, team
teaching, grants for additional training, reasonable standards for
performance, support provider/"teacher-leaders", National Board
certification, increased compensation, expense relief programs,
teacher tax credit, continuing education, aides, prep periods,
reassignments, smaller classes, time to work with other staff, help
from health/social service professionals, professional status, and
supportive parents, principals and administrations. In more
challenging areas, offer more paid time off sooner and bonuses.
- Some intangible incentives include community support, recognition,
supportive team staff, teachers and administration.
- Teachers are not paid close to what they deserve for the importance,
stress level and intellectual requirements of their work.
- Where burn out is an issue, often in underachieving schools, teachers
need to be able to secure change, receive counseling support, or engage
in collegial discussions to relieve stress. Administrative support and
leadership are also key.
- Teachers must have a say in their professional development and their
classrooms without dictates from the state and business. This argues
against scripted, state-mandated textbooks and curriculum, and suggests
the importance of school and district leadership. One participant
questioned whether the state should define learning in detail or outline
broad areas of learning.
- Teachers should not be told how to teach. However, the state should
tell them what to teach, and what is taught needs to be developmentally appropriate.
- Some participants believe there is a need for teacher career ladders
with options for vertical and horizontal movement. The career ladder
should promote the idea that there is a professional body of knowledge
and skills. Others disagree about the need for a career ladder,
believing that advancement can be worked out among professionals.
- It is vital to get away from the notion that to advance, a teacher
must move away from teaching. Recognize teachers for providing school
site leadership in curriculum and instruction-not administration.
- There's a need to value full-time faculty who have experience in K-12
classrooms and desire to work closely with teachers in the field.
- There's nothing like being in the classroom to understand the issues
of the classroom teacher. Perhaps a new model may be half-time
professors who also teach in a K-12 classroom.
- Many teachers start in adult education with little teaching
experience. They need comprehensive on-the-job support in the best
instructional methodologies. Adult educators need funding for
comprehensive, paid professional development programs.
- Strengthen retention by formalizing the mentoring process for new
teachers. More than ever, veteran teachers are assuming extended
professional responsibilities as mentors, coaches, adjunct faculty,
professional development providers, and more. We need to identify,
recruit, and support these key individuals.
- The state should establish an intern program for new teachers
utilizing retired teachers as mentors, perhaps with an orientation program for
the retired teachers. Could technology such as video conferencing be used in
conjunction with mentoring?
- One participant suggested involving industry where incentives are
given to companies that make industry professionals available to teach.
- The current college student population is a potential pool for future
teachers, though it might take special efforts to attract their
attention a teaching career. Suggestions included a Center on Teaching,
a TEACH-MOBILE, minor in Education, Blended Four Year Credential
programs, workshops and more. For middle school and high school
students, Future Teacher Clubs are an option.
- Bring back an education major that enables a student to receive a
teaching credential at the same time as their BA.
- The issue of recruitment needs to be examined on an individual basis
(e.g., by geographical area)
- In a recent survey, teachers reported the reasons for taking a job (in
descending order) are: proximity to home, assignment, salary, population
of students, schools' philosophy, professional learning, and resources.
Important implications were drawn from these reasons. Recruitment in
"resource rich" and "hard-to-staff" districts are different.
- People want to work where they feel they are making a difference to
children, peers, and to the education system; teachers like decisions
based on common sense, to work in an environment that is challenging and
responsive, and to have fun while learning and performing a very
important job.
- Staff development must be long-term, requiring teacher commitments to
try strategies/materials, with frequent opportunities for shared
feedback and assistance. There is a need for lesson study as well as
assignment analysis, long range planning, teacher content knowledge,
collaboration on best practices and some real world experience.
- One suggestion was to create an "A Team" of respected, highly paid
teachers to go into a school on a temporary basis to tackle challenges
and model effective strategies in the most difficult "remedial" classes.
The team would not be a "quick fix", but a support mechanism that taps
the experience of experienced professionals. Participants raised
concerns about such an approach.
- Quality in teaching is an affective issue and comes from creativity
and innovation. Good teachers have to feel inspired and invested.
Teachers and children alike need the opportunity to be the authors of
their learning lives, which involves an element of trust. Participants
discussed the need for teachers to have passion and pride in their profession.
How can teaching excellence be assured at postsecondary level? Will
the recommendations in the draft Plan help? Are there other essential
factors that should be addressed? Is the increasing proportion of
temporary faculty an issue in relation to quality teaching and learning?
If so, in what ways?
- More practitioners need to be involved in educating future
professional educators. At postsecondary education programs, it is
common to invite recent practitioners to join the faculty on a full-time
basis while they are on leave from their districts. Most programs have
part-time practitioners serving as adjunct faculty.
- There's a need to address the lack of quality teaching in university
teaching programs. At the postsecondary level, increase the number of
full-time faculty.
- Several suggestions were made to review teacher prep programs
applicability to the real educational world: review programs by a panel
of practicing teachers, require a full year's internship program,
require university level faculty to have recent significant, public
school classroom experience.
- There is a need to help both universities and K-12 classrooms expand
the application of technology. Partnerships in which universities
provide technology institutes for in-service teachers needs to be
encouraged and supported.
- The Plan can do a better job of acknowledging the contribution that
independent colleges and universities provide in producing qualified
public school teachers.
- We need to make university promotion and tenure criteria more
flexible. One approach is to allow faculty the option of focusing on
various combinations of teaching, scholarship, mentoring and service
during different phases of their academic careers. Another is to design
individualized faculty contracts that meet the needs of a specific
department, its students, the university as a whole and the outside community.
While this summary contains the highlights from the many ideas that were
offered, far more comprehensive information may be found in the
discussion archives.
We highly recommend that you read the original postings to discover the
full richness of the discussion. We suggest you chose the Thread viewing option.
Background summaries, daily topics, questions and background information
are available from the Agenda page.
http://www.network-democracy.org/camp/pa/agenda.shtml
Friday, June 7th will focus on Workforce Preparation and Business Linkages.
I welcome your comments on the summaries.
Sally Hedman
Reporter
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