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The Educator's Professional Growth Plan
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The Educator's Professional Growth Plan
A Process for Developing Staff and Improving Instruction

Second Edition


September 2007 | 256 pages | Corwin
`Outlines a systematic method that helps professional educators focus their energies on lasting professional growth. Strategies and templates assist teachers in reflecting on their own professional performance, setting their own learning targets, and managing their own progress toward greater professional success' - Scott Estes, Principal Glendale School, East Peoria, IL

Recognising that student achievement is intrinsically linked to high-quality teaching, Jodi Peine offers an invaluable guide that helps educational leaders strengthen teachers' instructional practice with an individualised and robust professional development process.

The author provides administrators and staff developers with step-by-step guidance for designing, implementing, and sustaining a professional growth plan. Grounded in research at elementary, middle, and high school levels, the process is delivered in manageable sections with reproducible forms for every step. With a refined method that includes formal data analysis, this guidebook:

- Demonstrates how participants can develop their own goals and action plans

- Provides current terminology and topics for individual growth plan development

- Examines steps to take after completing first-generation professional growth plans

- Helps redefine school improvement efforts to produce enduring systemic change

The Educator's Professional Growth Plan, Second Edition, provides a targeted approach that accommodates the unique needs of individual teachers. Within a supportive context, educators can assume responsibility for their own learning, witness changes in their professional practice, and realise substantive gains in student performance.

 
Preface
 
Acknowledgments
 
Introduction
 
1. Professional Growth: Defining the What, Why, Who, and How
What Is Professional Growth?

 
What Is a Professional Growth Plan?

 
What Is the Professional Growth Plan Process?

 
Why Use the Professional Growth Plan Process?

 
Who Can Use a Growth Plan?

 
Who Can Lead the Professional Growth Plan Process?

 
How to Implement the Professional Growth Plan Process Successfully

 
Encouraging New Traditions in Professional Growth

 
 
2. Managing the Professional Growth Plan Process
Operational Issues

 
Allocating Resources

 
Available Resources vs. Needs? - A Balancing Act

 
Who Has the Time?

 
Organizing People, Events, and Information

 
Forms? - How Can They Help?

 
Introducing the Process to Staff

 
The School Leader as Coach and Advisor

 
 
3. Identifying Areas for Professional Growth
The First of Four Phases

 
Targeting Professional Growth

 
Conducting a Personal Needs Assessment

 
Comparing Current Practices to Established Professional Performance Standards/Best Practice Research

 
Review and Understand Professional Performance Standards and Best Practices Research

 
The Self-Assessment Activity

 
Examining Relevant Student Performance Data

 
Facilitating Data Analysis

 
Linking Practice and Performance

 
Addressing Deficiencies and Discrepancies

 
Needs - Assessment and the School Leader

 
The Needs - Assessment Conference

 
The Needs Assessment Conference Record

 
 
4. Designing the Professional Growth Plan
The Second Phase: Plan Design

 
Guiding the Design Process

 
Establishing Professional Goals

 
Establishing Learner-Centered Goals

 
Can Goals Change?

 
Establishing the Questions

 
Creating the Essential Question

 
Creating Related Questions

 
Designing an Action Plan

 
Identifying Modes of Documentation

 
Documentation: A Product and a Process

 
Identifying Baseline Data

 
Defining Methods of Evaluation

 
Identifying Resource Needs

 
Choosing a Method for Sharing Results With the Learning Community

 
Finalizing the Growth Plan

 
 
5. Professional Growth Plans in Progress
Implementation and Monitoring

 
Monitoring the Process

 
Formal Monitoring: Progress Meetings

 
Informal Monitoring: Listening, Watching, Visiting

 
Deciding What Is Not Working and Why

 
Interim Sharing: What Has Happened so Far?

 
Troubleshooting? What Happens If. . . .

 
Preparing for the Final Phase

 
 
6. Completing the Growth Plan Process
Plan Evaluation

 
Growth Plan Summary Activities

 
Summarizing the Growth Plan Experience? What Happened?

 
The Growth Plan Summary Conference

 
Evaluating Documentation of Professional Growth

 
Sharing With the Learning Community

 
Wrapping Up the Professional Growth Plan Process

 
 
7. The Process Continues
Second Generation Plans and Beyond

 
Impediments to the Process

 
Changes in Personnel

 
Inconsistent Implementation

 
Lack of Administrative Support

 
The Demands of Compliance Directives and Documentation

 
The Professional Growth Plan Process Is School Improvement

 
The School Leader as Mechanic and Change Agent

 
 
Appendix A: School Leader Blacklines
 
Appendix B: Participant Blacklines
 
References
 
Index

"Offers the school leader a well-organized and effective plan. Reveals that true professional growth occurs through systematic reflection and analysis of one’s strengths and weaknesses."

Bonnie Watson, Writing Lab Coordinator
Owensboro 5-6 Center, KY

"A practical, comprehensive, up-to-date resource that empowers teachers and administrators to transform their schools into results-oriented professional learning communities. Peine's differentiated growth plan accommodates the unique needs and capabilities of both the administrator and the teacher. I highly recommend this book as a staff development text for any district."

Lynda Hootman, Teacher Educator
Morton, IL

"Takes readers through a process of professional growth and planning that is fully grounded in best practice. The second edition provides important insights on ways to sustain the professional growth process after the initial stages of implementation. A must-read for practicing administrators, teachers, and graduate students preparing to be administrators."

Jenny Tripses, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership
Bradley University

"Outlines a systematic method that helps professional educators focus their energies on lasting professional growth. Strategies and templates assist in guiding teachers to reflect on their own professional performance, set their own learning targets, and manage their own progress towards greater professional success."

Scott Estes, Principal
Glendale School, East Peoria, IL

For instructors

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