New Approach to Staff Development

This information is intended for Clerc Center personnel only. It is also available as a Word Doc or PDF file

Staff Development is of utmost importance. Our ability to provide teachers and staff with professional development opportunities is crucial for us to succeed in our role as the model school.

Education is a fast changing field. Best Practices are constantly being developed and modified. We need our staff to not only know best practices in the field of education but also to apply these best practices and adapt them for use with Deaf children.

Each year we introduce new concepts to teachers and staff. Many teachers and staff feel overwhelmed and unable to keep up with all the concepts presented in staff development workshops. Staff development needs to be a process where people are interested in learning about a particular topic, taught a skill/concept, given time to think about it and discuss it, take the skill/concept back to the class, apply it, then bring back information from the application of the concept and discuss what worked and what didn’t. The cycle should continue on and on.

Because of our busy schedules, the number of our priorities, and the limited time set aside for formal staff development, we are not able to follow through on the whole teaching/learning process for professional development that would be most beneficial.

This design would model a community building approach to professional development as well as give people the opportunity to gain the level of expertise in focus areas that would allow them to learn, apply, adapt and model best practices.

• To model the concepts of a community that values everyone and recognizes that people need choice and need the internal desire to learn.
• To address many important areas of professional development within the short time provided for professional development.
• To provide professional learning opportunities that give participants the chance to learn, process, apply, adjust, research and redo.
• To allow in depth learning of a specific topic rather than a superficial learning of many topics.
• To get people engaged in the teaching/learning process.
• To establish learning communities for the purpose of professional development.
• To make professional development everyone’s responsibility.

(This new model for professional development is based on the following beliefs.)

• Everyone has potential to contribute to the educational community at KDES and MSSD.
• Everyone is of equal importance.
• People have different areas of expertise and areas of weaknesses.
• We avoid doing what we can’t do.
• We don’t like to feel foolish.
• If I choose what I want to learn and how I want to learn it, I will be more vested in the work.
• People do best what they feel comfortable with and have confidence they can do.
• People are more willing to share and learn when they feel it is safe to take risks.
• The loudest person (or person with highest position) may not have the best ideas.
• We can only take in so much new information.
• We can only do so much and do it well.
• Staff development should be fluid, bending and changing as the situation arises.
• If everyone works together, we can be more successful.

1. We would have approximately 10 priority areas that are the focus for our community development for the school year. Topics would be diverse to address everyone’s interests and learning needs.
2. Each person in the demonstration schools would have the opportunity to choose an area they would like to focus on for the entire year.
3. Joining a professional development study group will be optional. However, each teacher and staff member will determine a professional development goal for the year with their supervisor.
4. One person with expertise in the priority areas would facilitate the group.
5. Each group will meet monthly, at a regularly schedule time for professional development. Each study group will determine the agenda and goals for the groups.
6. Meetings can be for information sharing, discussion, teaching a new concept, sharing experiences with others and getting feedback, developing ideas for sharing information with others in the demonstration school, etc.
7. Each member of a study group would have an area to focus on completely. Professional development would be an active ongoing process. Each group forms their own community. Over time the group will develop the sense of trust needed to have a community where it is safe to teach and learn.
8. Each group can have a column in the Clerc Center Connection. The column would sum up what is happening in the group, list articles or Web sites related to the focus group topic for others that may be interested, announce any speakers, workshops or things that people in the group are doing that others might want to see, etc.
9. The leader of each focus group would be available to go to the team and watch members of his/her focus group while applying new methods and strategies and give individual feedback.
10. When visitors come and are interested in a particular topic, we would have a pool of people that focus on that area and could talk to or demonstrate techniques for visitors.
11. Teachers and staff could do what they want with the information that they learn, depending on their level of comfort. They could just try to apply the ideas in their classroom, share it with others on their team, model techniques learned for others, make a presentation to their team, write an article about a new strategy, or talk with a colleague about how he/she could apply the concept in the classroom.
12. If members of the community would like to submit a proposal for a study group not on the predetermined list of groups, this can be done through an application process where a proposal is submitted to TPD to request a specific topic area.
13. Around midyear, (and again at the end of the year) we could have an EXPO where each group can share with what they have learned, perhaps setting up a booth or a mini workshop for others to learn from.

We have 10- 15 new groups formed at The Clerc Center. One is Teaching Writing. The leader is Dave Schleper. His group has decided to meet every Wednesday from 3:00 – 4:00. Dave keeps journals with each of the group members to model the Dialogue Journal process. In September, he has a workshop for the group on the writing process. He provides readings related to the topic, before and after the workshop. During the monthly meetings the teachers discuss the articles.

Raquel Muniz a teacher on 6, 7, and 8 is interested in getting writer’s workshop started on her team so she brings it up for discussion during the monthly meeting. Everyone in the group gives advice, shares their experiences, and supports Raquel in her endeavor. Later in the week, Dave goes into her class to model a mini lesson. Sharon Sandoval form team 1 and 2 and Carla Hanyzewski from student life both see Raquel during the week and ask her how it is going with writer’s workshop. The next meeting, Raquel is able to share her experiences and get feedback from the other members in her group.

The following week, Dave goes to observe Raquel doing writer’s workshop and give feedback. He continues to model, observe, give feedback and provide Raquel with materials when she needs it.

By November, Carla is thinking that she would like to do something with writing in the dorm. The group supports Carla with suggestions. Carla decides she will do a dorm gossip column using the writer’s workshop approach. Raquel offers to come to the dorm a couple of nights to help Carla get started. While in the dorm, Raquel meets several high school students that she thinks would be great models for her students so she asks them to come and speak to her class.

Rosemary Balzer from the junior team sees an article in the newspaper about families and writing. She brings it in to share with the group. Different strategies for involving families in writing are discussed. It is suggested that the students on Rosemary’s team write the newsletter using the writing process. Both Carla and Raquel are full of ideas of how she can successfully set up the process with her students.

Each time the group meets, they have decided to meet in a different venue. When they meet in Raquel’s room they can see the writing she is doing, when they meet in the Dorm they get to see the gossip column that Carla’s group has written and the drafts the students have written in the process.

Heather Jilao wants to start the students off right in the high school with good portfolios that demonstrate student learning. Knowing that Lil Tompkins from the department of education is an expert on portfolios, the group invites her to give a presentation.

The group, with the help of TPD, writes a column for the monthly Clerc Center Connection. In the article by the focus group, Teaching Writing, they write about Raquel’s writer’s workshop and even include a poem published by her student. They also list several Web sites that Dave has found as well as the article that Rosemary brought in for others at the Clerc Center to know about. They also invite anyone that wishes to attend, to come to Lil Tompkins presentation on portfolios.

Later, Jim Perry of 6, 7, and 8 who is not in the Teaching Writing focus group asks Raquel how he can integrate writing into his history lesson. Raquel offers some suggestions and then offers to help Jim in class. Jim Barrie, offers to take Raquel’s class while Raquel is helping Jim Perry.

Rosemary talks with other family educators not in the Teaching Writing focus group and shares her experiences with developing the newsletter using the writer’s workshop process. Judy Stout of 3, 4, and 5 asks Rosemary to come help her get started on her team. Rosemary says she doesn’t feel comfortable teaching yet, but Rosemary brings it up at the next monthly meeting and gets support for Judy.

TPD has a teacher coming from Iowa that wants to start writer’s workshop in her class. Because of this committee, TPD has a list of people that are willing to talk to visitors or allow visitors to come and watch the writing process in action. Each person in the Teaching Writing group has discussed how comfortable they are with given topics and what they are willing to do and share with others.

In January on a full day blocked off for professional development, we have an EXPO where each focus group has a booth with articles, activities and ideas related to their focus to share with others. We even invite the students at Gallaudet who are training to be teachers.

By May, all the different groups are doing exciting things. Several groups have set up action research projects; one has written a grant to expand their group’s work; two groups have been asked to present at summer institutes; and three groups have manuscripts accepted for publication. Phil and his group have put everything the different groups are doing on the web providing contacts in each area for people across the United States.

In June we have a Professional Day where each group presents their portfolio showing accomplishments and discussing the groups goals for future work.

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