Foreword Background Definition of Terms Mission of the Task Force Guiding Principles for the Task Force Overview of Current Programs Critical Issues Recommendations Appendix A The ABCs Plus Appendix B "Recommendations" from Meaningful Professional Development Programs, a report from the State Board of Education Appendix D Generalized Model for Teacher Professional Development
| Background
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| Senate Bill 272, known as The Excellent Schools
Act, was ratified by the General Assembly and signed by Governor Hunt on
June 24, 1997. A comprehensive plan for improving student academic achievement
and reducing teacher attrition, this legislation has three specific goals:
"(i) concentrate student learning in the core academic areas; (ii) improve
teacher skills and teacher knowledge as those skills and knowledge relate
to improved academic achievement; and (iii) reward teachers for their improved
skills and knowledge and for improved student academic achievement."
The Excellent Schools Act includes a focus on improved and aligned professional development programs of the University of North Carolina that are available to public school educators. Specifically, the Board of Governors of the University is directed to "implement, administer, and revise programs for meaningful professional development for professional public school employees based upon evaluation and recommendations made by the State Board of Education." Furthermore, these programs will be aligned with the state's education goals and strategic priorities. (Appendix A) The focus of these programs will be to develop well qualified teachers and administrators who will strive for high student performance in safe and orderly schools. This report contains the committee's recommendations to provide increased coordination, alignment, enhancement, and assessment of existing professional development programs. These recommendations are presented to the Board of Governors on March 13, 1998. The UNC Board of Governors reports to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee by April 1, 1998. |
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Overview
of Current Programs |
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| A brief overview of the educator preparation
and development programs under the governance of the Board of Governors
for the University of North Carolina follow.
University-School Teacher Education Partnerships The North Carolina General Assembly in 1997 funded a budget request of $1.8 million to establish University-School Teacher Education Partnerships. The intent of the Partnerships is to fundamentally alter the structure of North Carolina teacher preparation programs to produce better prepared teachers and administrators who will be an essential ingredient for successful school reform. The Partnerships are build upon five Guiding Principles:
The majority of the Partnerships include the following program components:
Offices of School Service In 1991 each of the fifteen constituent institutions with a college/school/ department of education established an Office of School Service which links the needs of the public schools with the resources of the university. Each Office of School Service provides assistance to the public schools through response to specific requests and through the development of systemic programs that bring together an institution's resources with long-term needs of area school systems. The Offices of School Service make it possible for a university to develop an extensive resource list and provide a single source for a school system to contact to arrange for needed services. Although Offices of School Services seek to respond to all school system requests, priority is given to school districts identified as low-performing. Center for School Leadership Development In January 1997, the Board of Governors adopted a proposal to establish the University of North Carolina Center for School Leadership Development which will be responsible for the ongoing professional development of professional public school employees. The Executive Director of the Center will give oversight to existing professional development programs and will establish an Executive Leadership Academy for Superintendents. Six professional development programs will be part of the Center for School Leadership Development:
Master of School Administration Programs The Master of School Administration Degree (MSA) is offered by eight of the universities under the governance of the Board of Governors. This degree program is intended to prepare outstanding potential educational leaders for entry-level positions in school administration, especially for the positions of assistant principal and principal. Graduates of these programs receive an exemplary approach to professional preparation for educational leadership. The Master of School Administration at East Carolina University, Fayetteville State University, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Wilmington, and Western Carolina University were established in the fall of 1995 as a result of a competitive proposal process that was a follow-up to the Educational Leadership Task Force report to the General Assembly in February 1993. The MSA program at Appalachian State University was added by legislative action in 1996. Each of the MSA programs presents a clear, coherent, and persuasive vision of the future of education in the State and of the needs and challenges posed for school leadership and its development; reflects understanding and consideration of state-of-the-art practice and the knowledge/research base in pertinent fields; provides a compelling platform for deliberate action to improve training of school leaders in North Carolina. A scholarship program which is merit-based and funded by the North Carolina General Assembly, the North Carolina Principal Fellows Program assists full-time students enrolled in the MSA degree programs to prepare for a career in school administration. Each scholarship loan provides funding for up to two years. Currently 160 Principal Fellows are in the program; originating legislation allowed for 200 Principal Fellows per year although that level of funding has not yet been reached. |
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| Recommendations
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| The following recommendations are predicated
first and foremost on the assurance that the professional development programs
under the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina shall
be aligned with state education goals and directed toward improving student
academic achievement.
To ensure that this mission becomes a reality, the task force makes the following recommendations for the purpose of rendering better service to all LEAs; improving communication and collaboration among the teacher preparation programs, the MSA programs, programs within the Center for School Leadership Development, and programs of the Department of Public Instruction; and designing a shared vision of professional development for all professional public schools employees in North Carolina: Leadership and Change
Models and Opportunities for Professional Development
Internal/External Communications
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| The ABCs
Plus: North Carolina's Strategic Plan for Excellent Schools |
| Mission: North Carolina's public schools will create a system
that will be customer driven with local flexibility to achieve mastery
of core skills with high levels of accountability in areas of student achievement.
North Carolina State Board of Education,
April 10, 1996
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Note: applications of technology and information management systems will be integral to strategies undertaken in support of the strategic goals.
"Recommendations" from Meaningful Professional Development Programs, a report from the State Board of Education
Meaningful professional development programs improve student achievement and learning, is informed by national, state and district goals, is job-related, and is designed to increase or change knowledge, skills, or attitude. Using the National Staff Development Council’s standards; using national curriculum standards; and using student / teacher / administrator performance standards, the Board of Governors should consider meaningful professional development that reflects a needs assessment of the target audience to determine learning gaps; includes clearly stated goals, objectives, and outcomes; includes relevant, rigorous, and challenging content; includes a program design that includes research-based instructional strategies; measure for learning and on-the-job transfer, supports on the job by mentors, coaches, and supervisors; and evaluates for change in knowledge, skills, or attitudes.
The structural design of such meaningful professional development programs:
Finally, programs should center on improving or increasing knowledge and skill in:
Teacher Development for Higher Student Achievement
Generalized Model for Teacher Professional Development
Used with permission: Charles R. Coble
The quality of teaching depends upon effective initial preparation, supportive induction, and continuous access to appropriate learning opportunities throughout a career. Teachers with access to new knowledge, enriched professional roles, and ongoing collegial work feel more efficacious in developing the capacity they need to teach their students well, and more positive about staying in the profession. Thus, there is an obvious need to prepare teachers well initially and to create stable, high quality sources of professional development. The model described here is an attempt to define comprehensively the elements of the professional development of teachers. The model describes three dimensions, which are: the STAGES of career development; the DOMAINS of knowledge/skills/beliefs/needs of teachers; and the general SOURCES of professional development.
STAGES
This dimension of the model underscores the need for tailoring the substance and source of professional development experience to the appropriate developmental stage of the learner.
Preservice Level
This stage of the model builds on David Berliner's developmental view of the process of teacher career development. The preservice stage emphasizes the connectedness of preparation programs to the process and suggests, as recommended by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, that colleges and universities need to remain connected to teachers in their early years of experience. The lines between these first three phases should begin to blur as preparation programs are redesigned to become more field-based and connected to the public schools.
Inductee/Novice Level
The successful novice teacher needs to learn to discriminate the commonplace elements of the learning environment to label and learn the elements of teaching-related tasks. Behavior is deliberate, rational, relatively inflexible and conforming. Minimum skills should be expected as the learner focuses on objective facts and features of different situations and gains experience. Mentoring and support are essential.
Advanced Beginner Level
Many second and third year teachers are in this phase in which experience combines with verbal knowledge, episodic and core knowledge, to complement the theoretical knowledge gained from initial preparation programs. Berliner emphasizes that skills like running a classroom must be learned experientially from personally meaningful and often emotionally-laden episodes. Strategic knowledge begins to develop that guides more flexible behavior. Mentoring can be most helpful at this stage.
Competent Level
Not all teachers reach this level, but third and fourth year teachers are likely to be in this stage as well as more experienced teachers. Competent teachers make conscious choices about their actions, set priorities and plan according to rational goals. They can determine in practice what they must attend to and what they can safely let go. Competent teachers can make curriculum and instruction decisions based on teaching context and particular students.
Proficient Level
A small number of teachers reach this stage by their fifth year. Intuition becomes a major element of practice and a more holistic view of situations develops as experience leads to higher level pattern categorization. Proficient teachers are better able to predict events and bring past case knowledge to bear on problems.
Expert Level
Berliner characterizes these teachers as arational because they can intuitively grasp a situation and sense appropriate responses in non-analytic, non-deliberative ways. Choices are made unconsciously and behavior is effortless and very fluid.
Teacher Emeritus Level
This stage acknowledges the ongoing development and potential contribution of educators beyond full-time service and particularly emphasizes a rich pool of experience which can facilitate the development of beginning and advanced teachers.
DOMAINS
This dimension of the model addresses what teachers should know and be able to do (the single most important influence on student learning, says the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future) as well as the kinds of support they need to undergird this most essential activity of schools.
Content knowledge
This domain includes not only subject or discipline scholarship, but also how classroom activity and planning relate to curriculum; testing; local, district and national goals. Awareness and use of networks, professional associations, publications, technologies and other means of updating one's knowledge base would also come under this domain. Content knowledge and the following domain, pedagogical knowledge, comprise what Virginia Richardson terms "formal knowledge," one of the principal components contributing to teachers' belief systems.
Pedagogical Knowledge
This second aspect of formal knowledge is most often first experienced in preservice teacher education courses and should include topics such as different models of teaching, learning and development; classroom environment and management; assessment; planning; the process of inquiry; technology; and the art of reflective practice. Pedagogical knowledge, like content knowledge, and pedagogical skills should be systematically developed over a teacher's career.
Pedagogical Skill
This domain is a function of all of the other domains because it is here that knowledge is manifested in teacher behavior and practice with students, peers, parents, and administrators. Lee Shulman's concept of "pedagogical content knowledge," encompassed in this domain, focuses on the difference between teachers who are experts in subject matter and those who are expert teachers of subject matter. Expert teachers can transform their knowledge into student knowledge by presenting subject matter in appropriate ways.
Socio-Cultural Knowledge and Skills
Preservice teachers need to be aware of the fact that schools have different cultures and that they will be affected by the school's culture. Linda Darling-Hammond and Eileen Mary Sclar believe that school culture is the single most powerful predictor of teachers' work and an organizations commitment. Over time they should also learn how to contribute to positive changes in the school culture. Teachers must know about the role they play in socializing students and helping to shape the school culture. Teachers should also learn procedures to gain cultural information about the communities represented in the classroom such as making home visits, talking with parents, and observing children in and out of school.
Personal & Professional Development
This domain is multi-dimensional and addresses teacher's needs during different developmental career and adult life phases. It includes needs in areas such as the pedagogical (e.g. analytic and reflective teaching), emotional (e.g. family transitions), psychological (e.g. stress management), financial (e.g. long range planning), intellectual (e.g. graduate/post-graduate education), and physical (e.g. health maintenance).
SOURCES
This dimension of the Model is intended to identify the primary sources of teacher development, which are virtually limitless. The obvious challenge is to select the right source to deliver the right development program or activity for the right population of teachers at the right time.
