RSA2: Professional Development to Improve Student Achievement

RSA2: Professional Development to Improve Student Achievement

Online Resource: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3202820

Researching the outcomes of professional development is abundant. Holly Holland introduces two important points. “Teachers are more likely to change their teaching practices when professional development is directly linked to the program they are teaching and the standards and assessments that they use.” (Holland, 2005 Volume 3, Issue 1, p. 3) Teachers will learn more during professional development when it is linked to what they are doing and using in the classroom, or will use in the short term. The second important point is that, “Teacher professional development can improve student achievement when it focuses on teacher’s knowledge of the subject matter and how student’s understand and learn it.” (Holland, 2005 Volume 3, Issue 1, p. 3) Bottom line, make it relevant, and substantive. Teachers want to improve their skills, and their student’s learning.

In “Transforming Knowledge into Professional Development Resources: Six Teachers Implement a Model of Teaching for Understanding Text,” the author suggests, “the kinds of experiences that will provide teachers with effective professional development. Their descriptions focus on experiences that are as close as possible to the classroom and the kinds of situations that teachers will be trying to create.” (McKeown & and Beck, 2004, p. 392) This discusses the development of professional development resources, and the outcomes of student learning. Developing teacher awareness of student needs, thus effective the overall outcome, and improvement of student learning.

Developing the professional within every teacher almost has a natural outcome of student improvement. The focus is what type of professional development has the most, or strongest impact overall on the target student. Research supports that the specific, direct development of teacher knowledge and content, along with the process of improving facilitator effectiveness will have a stronger impact on the end goal, student learning. Both of these articles support this premise.

References

Holland, H. (2005 Volume 3, Issue 1, Summer). Teaching Teachers: Professional Development to Improve Student Achievement. Research Points, Essential Information for Education Policy, 1-4. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

McKeown, M. G., & and Beck, I. L. (2004, May). Transforming Knowledge into Professional Development Resources: Six Teachers Implement a Model of Teaching for Understanding Text. The Elementary School Journal, 104(5), 391-408. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3202820