Professional Development Needs

Circle your level of need for each of the following categories.

Key: 1 – Not needed nor necessary

2 – Very little need

3 - A need but not of the utmost importance.

4 - Would like more information and training. Important.

5 - Would like more information and training. Most Important

Topic	1	2	3	4	5
How to use technology	1	2	3	4	5
Implementation of technology in lessons	1	2	3	4	5
Basics of collaboration with peers	1	2	3	4	5
Vocabulary in my content	1	2	3	4	5
Methods of differentiation	1	2	3	4	5
How to implement differentiation methodologies into my daily lessons	1	2	3	4	5
Writing varied levels of questions	1	2	3	4	5
Making connections between the concepts and to real-life situations	1	2	3	4	5
Vertical aligning curriculum	1	2	3	4	5
Problem based teaching and learning	1	2	3	4	5
How to use data to guide differentiation to meet student needs on a daily basis	1	2	3	4	5
How to use benchmark data to guide differentiation to meet student needs for remediation	1	2	3	4	5

Making Connections Between Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction:

Professional Development Proposal

High School: SOL assessed courses

Teachers will:

· Analyze their learning style and discover their multiple intelligences acknowledging how it affects their teaching style and relationships with their students.

· Learn to write higher level questions.

· Review types of lesson plans for investigative lessons and direct instruction.

· Discuss classroom management techniques that aid and support student-centered learning and teaching.

· Learn the “How to’s” of providing differentiation within their classrooms.

· Discuss the role of technology in meeting the needs of all students and its’ correct usage.

· Analyze the first and second quarter data to determine weak areas in the curriculum and their teaching.

· Be split into groups according to courses and schools.

· Create a unit of study based on a first or second quarter weakness that are student-centered and relevant to the students’ lives.

· Present one of the lessons created during the summer during the assigned first/second quarter and report back during the follow up sessions.

· Follow up reports are to include a reflection about how the lesson proceeded, a sample of an assessment completed by a student (name omitted), discussion of what the assessment is telling the teacher and the subsequent remediation, connections between concepts that the teacher and students made during the lesson, any changes, additions or deletions.

· 15 hours during the summer, 1 hour on SCORE for the groups to finalize the unit, and 2 – 2 hour follow up sessions.

· Book:

The written unit should include:

· an overview of the unit,

· a list of standards addressed in the unit,

· key concepts and/or generalizations to be used to focus the teacher and student,

· what students will be expected to know, understand, and be able to do as a result of the unit, (showing) connections between concepts on the curriculum maps and previous course concepts,

· key instructional strategies,

· supporting materials and equipment,

· unit overview chart (3 columns) includes 1) lesson sequence and the expected time allotment, 2) whole class activities, and 3) differentiated components to meet the needs of all students,

· unit description (lesson sequence and description, how they plan to gear up or gear down each lesson, formative and summative assessments), and teacher commentary (thoughts about the component and higher order questions). Differentiated components should be “starred” and all supporting documents and assessment included at the end of the unit.

· Reflection (this is to be turned in separately after a lesson has been taught.)

Description posted on My Learning Plan:

This course is open to all high school mathematics teachers. Teachers will have the opportunity to recognize their teaching style strengths/weaknesses, look at varied questioning levels, develop assessments, and investigate vertical alignment with respect to the course you are teaching. Making connections in the content and exploring how to differentiate, the how to’s, will be discussed. Two follow up sessions will take place during the school year and one online SCORE discussion.

Process used to determine professional development needs:

Spotsylvania County Schools require teachers to attend 20 hours of professional development on the division level each year along with 18 hours of site based professional development. It is a huge undertaking to decide the needs of teachers county-wide. Professional development is attempting to gather data as to the usefulness and success of the division wide professional development courses. Thus a process has been implemented this year that guides how we go through making these decisions. I have the freedom to determine what is offered but need to submit a proposal, along with data to support the need for the course, to the professional development department. A committee then approves, disapproves, or amends our suggestions. After we are approved, I write a proposal along with a course description that will be placed on My Learning Plan for the teachers to view and sign up.

In order to make the best informed decision possible I decided to go out to the teachers and administrators. Students in our county take quarterly benchmark assessments. After the assessment is given and the data gathered, I visit each of the secondary schools to discuss concerns regarding the assessment, the curriculum for the past and current quarter, and how to use the data to remediate students as an intervention to the end of course state assessments. After the second quarter benchmark assessment I also used this time to determine professional development needs. The questions on the survey (attached) are those that are asked of teachers and administrator overseeing mathematics in each secondary level building. I summarized the needs and requests for each school and then by county. These needs, requests, are then correlated with data collected from the benchmarks and Standards of Learning end of course assessment data. Administrator concerns are heavily weighted in our decision of what will be presented. The data and course request was submitted resulting in the development of the attached proposal and course description.