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Professional development for the teacher, of the teacher, and by the teacher
Education; Chula Vista; Fall 1996; Pierce, DalphiaHunsaker, T Wayne
Issue: / 1
Start Page: / 101-105
ISSN: / 00131172
Subject Terms: / Educators
Professional development
Employee empowerment
Models
Abstract:
Pierce and Hunsaker describe a program called School Innovation Through Teacher Interaction (SITTI), which was developed specifically to empower the teachers to make the changes that they think are appropriate. SITTI is a cyclical model intended to create experts among the faculty and support change efforts through peer coaching.
Copyright Project Innovation Fall 1996
[Headnote]
Professional development in most cases takes place around the teachers, but rarely seems to involve the teacher. A program called School Innovation Through Teacher Interaction (SITTI) was designed specifically to empower the teachers to make the changes that they think are appropriate. SITTI is a cyclical model intended to create experts among the faculty and support change efforts through peer coaching.
In the old days, it was called in-service. Inservice meetings were held during the first few days of the new school year before the students arrived. The meetings were usually conducted by an administrator or curriculum specialist from the district office, and the topics were generally picked by the administration. The intent was to update the teachers' skills, knowledge base, and to get everyone charged up for the new school year. Some teachers worked on entering names in their grade books; some cut out letters for their bulletin boards; some even slept, and occasionally someone benefitted. But the effect was usually closer to frustration at having lost valuable time which could have been spent getting ready for the students' arrival. No one seemed to ever ask the teachers what they wanted or needed to know about, and implement was expected to come from just being exposed to the information.
Now days, it is called professional development. New name, old game. Meetings still take place at the beginning of the school year, held by an administrator or an outside consultant. And teachers still spend their time entering names in the grade book, cutting out bulletin board pieces, or sleeping. The intention of updating the teachers' skills is still the same, and the resulting frustration is still the same. Rarely does anyone ask the teachers what they want or need to know about, and they are still expected to implement the information after a cursory exposure to it. What happens between the intent of the professional development, which is certainly an honorable one, and the result of the professional development, which doesn't seem to accomplish the goals?
The difficulty with professional development as it usually functions is that the people for whom the program is intended, the teachers, are left out of the loop. The professional development agenda is rarely the teachers' agenda; the consultants come and go, but there is no support system to help the teachers work through the "bugs" that arise during the implementation. This article describes a program which was designed specifically to empower the teachers to make the changes in their own classrooms and in their schools which they think are appropriate.
Change
Since 1983 and the publishing of "A Nation at Risk", restructuring and reform have been part of the educational vocabulary. Change is inevitable and necessary. However, our educational practices have not kept pace with our increasingly complex society and that in many cases, we are still teaching in an early 1900's factory model of schooling. The consideration is how does a faculty begin and sustain the change effort.
Restructuring, reform, or change of any kind in an institution as set in tradition and history such as schooling is difficult, and almost certainly involves the changing of rules, roles, and relationships. A necessary component to creating long-term, effective school change is to establish a common vision among the teachers and the administrators; a vision in which the teachers have a vested interest in supporting. If a common vision can be established, it will serve as a foundation for building school unity and a guide for the change.
This vision should be one that the teachers and administrators have arrived at by agreement rather than one decreed from the top. Teachers are more committed to changes they have had a hand in designing. Teachers must become willing agents of change.
Unfortunately, teachers may want change but lack the skills or knowledge with which to implement innovation, so that when change does come, it becomes a "top-down" administrative mandate. Workshops and traditional in-services with one-time consultants are usually "single shot" attempts at professional development. Without being based in the shared vision, and because there tends to be little or no follow up, there usually is little or no substantive change. This type of professional development does not seem to provide support for professional growth.
SITTI - A Different Plan
Clearly what is needed is a different way of accomplishing professional development so that the teacher is not a passive recipient of information about change, but rather an integral part of the process. There are six axioms about professional development which seem to result in long-term substantive change.
1. Professional development which results in improved practice should be generated on an individual school basis (Goodlad, 1984; Wood, 1989).
2. A school culture supportive of improved practice and professional growth is basic to successful professional development. (Caldwell, 1989; Crandall, 1983).
Long-term change in educational practice takes considerable time and is the result of long-term professional development (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Sizer, 1984; Saphier & King, 1985).
Teacher ownership is critical to maintenance of the reform momentum (Merenbloom, 1984; SLy, 1992; Wood, 1989).
Professional development which does not improve student outcomes is not important (Caldwell, 1989; Merenbloom, 1984; Sly, 1992).
Professional development should be designed in such a way that the outcomes of the program can be clearly stated and measured to give direction to improvement efforts (Sparks, 1994).
To attend to these axioms and overcome the limitations of traditional professional development noted previously, a model called SITTI - School Innovation Through Teacher Interaction - was developed (Pierce & Hunsaker, 1995). It is a cyclical model which begins with the common vision, identifies the needs of the faculty, establishes "experts" among the faculty who will act on the needs, provides support for change and improvement through peer coaching, and monitors the achievement levels of the students as an indicator of the effectiveness of the program. It is a model of professional development for the teacher, of the teacher and by the teacher.
The first step in model is agreement on what the faculty wants the school to "look" like the vision. Sources of this vision include efforts from schools and individuals elsewhere which someone on the faculty has heard about, methods someone may have tried, or just the desire to have a different school than the one they are presently teaching in. It should describe the mission of the school. Statements like, "to enable all students to be successful." must be defined. Does "all students" mean 100 percent, including the special needs kids and that deadbeat in detention? Is 100 percent possible?
"Successful" at what? Does that encompass success in reading or history class, or in band; success at making a living, successful in getting out of school or just staying out of detention? Often our words are ambiguous and frequently mean something different to each of us. But in order to create a common vision, definitions of these words are necessary, as is compromise over just what is significant in that school. It is not important that everyone agree exactly, but it is important that the majority be willing to support the vision. The vision will be related to student outcomes.
The next step in the process of the model is a needs assessments among the faculty and the administration. The assessment procedure should identify what the teachers and administrators believe to be necessary to develop the school described in the vision. The elements which are identified in the needs assessment will then be prioritized because everything cannot be changed at once. Not only is change time consuming and labor intensive, it is also scary. The areas identified as needing change will out of necessity be taken slowly so that all of the people involved, teachers and students can adjust to the new way. Significant long-term change requires long-term professional development.
Step three in the model has two components. One component concerns deciding g who will serve as the "Experts" for the school in the first area identified by the needs assessment procedure. The second component is choosing the members of the team who will train the faculty in peer coaching. The Expert Teams will work best with two to five members, depending on the size of the school. Teachers should be allowed to choose the area in which they want to work rather than being assigned to a team. Not all teachers will want to serve on the Expert Teams. Those who do should be compensated for their time and efforts from the normal professional development allocation each school receives.
During step four, the Expert Team who has volunteered to work on the first element chosen for change will develop a module which contains the information base and skills development needed for the change. Each module in turn should be fashioned from current research and include-implementation strategies for the teachers to use in their classrooms. The expert team will develop the information and present the information to the faculty with accompanying implementation strategies. Consultants and commercial materials are available, but what is necessary is that the members of the Expert Teams become the resident experts. Frequently when teachers try new strategies, problems occur. The consultant who brought the strateev to the school has left. so there is no one close at hand to help solve the problems. Being available to help in problem solving is part of the responsibilities of the Expert Team and to do that well, the Team must be very conversant in the new strategy. By using the teachers as experts, the expertise for each of the changed areas remains at the school.
At the same time as the first Expert Team is developing its module, the teachers who have chosen to work on a peer coaching training team are developing the training in the elements of peer coaching. Peer coaching is an integral part of the SITTI model. Although the modules are presented by the team members who developed the information, the implementation and support for problem solving is maintained through peer coaching. The sequence in the peer coaching step of the SITI model includes:
1. training in observational and feedback skills;
2. building team cohesiveness;
3. developing action plans for each team member;
4. establishing a peer observation cycle;
5. providing formative feedback after each observation;
6. evaluating personal performance against previously set goals.
All of the teachers in the school should be assigned to peer coaching teams containing three to four members. A calendar scheduling peer observations by each team is necessary to insure that everyone is observed by a team mate at least three times in a year. Each teacher will develop an action plan containing his or her own personal goals at they relate to the development of new skills and strategies. Data collected during the peer observation sessions will serve as formative assistance in helping the individual teacher evaluate his or her success in accomplishing the goals that were set in the action plans.
There are many benefits derived from using peer coaching as a support system. It increases collegiality, enhances each teacher's understanding of the concepts and strategies, and sustains the restructuring effort by strengthening ownership of the changes. Non-evaluative peer coaching encourages the school's innovations thought the teacher's interaction by providing opportunities for each teacher to explore the concepts and undertake new strategies within the context of being with friends, an important factor when attempting new endeavors.
The last step in the SI ITI cycle is to measure student outcomes against the vision. Professional development which is not connected to gains in students outcomes is pointless. Goals for increased student achievement, satisfaction with school, and decreased drop-out rates should be clearly established in the beginning so that the success of the professional development process can be measured.
When the faculty feels it is ready to tackle the next area identified in the needs assessment, the cycle of model begins again with a different team of experts working on a different module. Skills from the first module can be continuously worked on because the experts in that area are still at the school. New faculty members can be mentored into the change effort in the same way as veteran faculty are learning the new skills.
The literature advocates that teachers be heavily involved in their own professional development and the change be accomplished on a school by school basis. The structure of the STITI model which focuses on teachers' needs and involvement, attends to that suggestion. As it is unlikely that all of the teachers on a given Expert Team will leave the school at the same time, there will always be "experts" among the faculty. In this way, the change effort becomes self-sustaining. As teachers are becoming more interested in taking charge of change, it is important to have a model which will assist them in their change endeavors. SIT is one model that can accomplish this.