Professional Development Action Planner

This KnowledgeBase archive includes content and external links that were accurate and relevant as of September 30, 2019.

Instructions:

Use this checklist to plan your organizing steps and meetings. Use Action Planner Tool 2* to document decisions and plan next steps wherever it is helpful.

Step One: Designing Professional Development

1. Include professional development participants and organizers in the professional development design process.

• Decide who should be involved in the initial PD design working team. (Use Tool 1, Parts A and B.)
• Decide what role other stakeholders will have in PD design, both initial and ongoing. (Use Tool 1, Parts A and B.)
• Invite/notify stakeholders to participate in PD design.
• Determine leadership roles for the PD design working team.
• Determine the process for the PD design working team: When should you meet? Who will schedule meetings? What do you need in advance, and who will provide it? Who will collect and distribute additional agenda items and supporting material? Are standing meetings mandatory? What happens if someone cannot attend? Who will "facilitate" the meeting to ensure that you prioritize and get through all critical agenda items? How will you make decisions—by consensus, vote or other? Under what circumstances will you make decisions outside of group meetings? How? Who is responsible for communicating decisions to those who cannot participate? What will each of you do when a decision or action with which you disagree is made without your participation? Other issues?
• Create a standing agenda for all PD working team meetings, including updates on work in progress, new issues/problems, identification of preparatory work for next meeting, communication (who needs to be informed of decisions made in this meeting) and documents from this meeting that need to be saved in the main file.

2. Make a clear plan that includes:

a.) How professional development supports the school/district's long-term plan.

• Review existing educational goals for the state, district and school.
• "Map" district and school educational goals to ensure they are linked. (Use Tool 3.)
• Make a plan for linking team and individual classroom educational(not PD) goals to school goals in the future, including who will ensure linkage, when, and using what tools, and who will review and approve the goals. (Use Tool 3.) A professional development needs assessment process.

b.) Plan and implement a student needs assessment process. (Use Tool 4.)

• Identify expert sources to assist with needs assessment, if required.
• Choose comparison groups.
• Choose sources of data, both existing and customized.
• Develop tools, as needed, to gather data.
• Gather data.
• Complete a summary of student needs after student assessments are complete. (Use Tool 4.)
• Plan a teacher/staff needs assessment process. (Use Tool 5.)
• Identify expert sources to assist with staff needs assessment, if required.
• Identify staff skills/competencies needed to close student achievement gaps.
• Identify the actualskill/competency level of staff.
• Complete a summary of your staff's gaps and strengths after assessments are complete. (Use Tool 5.)

c.) Professional development goals.

• Create professional development principles (general goals and parameters). (Use Tool 6.)
• Create professional development objectives (specific goals). (Use Tools 3, 5, and 7.)

d.) Professional development content, process, and activities.

• Plan a process for selecting PD content and activities at each organization level (district, school, team and individual staff). (Use Tool 8.)
• Complete the following tasks for each organization level:
  • Identify specific PD content required to meet each PD goal. (Use Tool 9.)
  • Identify potential activities to learn PD content. (Use Tool 9.)
  • Research potential activities. (Use Tools 9 and 10.)
  • Select activities at each organizational level. (Use Tools 9 and 10.)

e.) Research that supports the chosen content/process for professional development.

• Include research into best practices in the initial PD design. (Use Tools 9 and 10.)

f.)  Resources available to support professional development.

• Identify sources and uses of financial resources. (Use Tool 11.)
• Identify needs and sources of expertise for each selected PD activity. (Ue Tool 9.)
• Identify needs and sources of expertise for PD design, implementation and evaluation processes as needed. (Use Tool 9.)
• Identify needs and sources for PD-related facilities. (Use Tool 9.)

g.) Professional development evaluation steps.

• Identify success measures for each PD goal and each supporting activity. (Use Tool 12.)
• Identify data sources and gathering method for each measure. (Use Tool 12.)
• Plan a process for reporting evaluation findings. (Use Tool 12.)
• Determine who will lead the process for making PD improvement. (Use Tool 12.)

3. Share the plan.

Make a plan for ongoing communications, including information about the initial PD plan, with the school community. (Use Tools 1 and 13.)

Step Two: Implementing Professional Development

• Stay abreast of and incorporate best practices into teaching, learning and leadership. (Use Tools 10 and 14.)
• Make sure school/district policies and practices support actual PD implementation for staff in schools. (Use Tool 14.)
• Identify critical factors for successful implementation into your school/district.
• Identify an ongoing process for ensuring successful implementation and problem solving.
• Ensure that resources remain available to organize and implement PD. (Use Tool 14.)
• Identify opportunities to make PD part of everyday school life; revisit periodically to improve. (Use Tool 14.)

Step Three: Evaluating and Improving Professional Development

• Ensure implementation of the evaluation plan. (Use Tool 12.)
• Schedule time to review and improve the evaluation process after the first round of evaluation/improvement.

Step Four: Sharing Professional Development Learning

• Keep records of PD decisions to guide future decisions.
• Keep implementation materials organized and available to others.

Source:

North Central Regional Educational Laboratory

* This is an excerpt from a larger document; therefore, references to Tools are unapplicable in this context.The North Central Regional Laboratoryended in 2005, however, much of the content has been relocated to www.adLit.org.

The contents of this website were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and are intended for general reference purposes only. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education or the Center, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Some resources on this site require Adobe Acrobat Reader. This website archive includes content and external links that were accurate and relevant as of September 30, 2019.