Linwaun Fulton

North Carolina State University

Analysis of a Professional Development

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Analyzing a Professional Development Session

I had the opportunity to attend a professional development session on equity and using a

building-wide intervention at my school, Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School. During the

session, on Friday, March 8, 2019, the topics were: an introduction to equity and on one of our

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support or MTSS, strategies: the academic recovery plan, which

provides an opportunity for students to earn points for the previous grading quarter. The staff

development took place in teachers’ classrooms with staff members grouped by departments.

Teachers and administrators co-led the professional development session as part of our early

release day schedule. The introduction to equity comprised of four articles being provided and

the teachers chose one article to read and discuss within a small group of four people. The

second part of the professional development session encompassed an overview of the academic

recovery plan and rehearsing the vital action steps to implement the plan with fidelity.

Throughout the professional development session I observed areas where we could grow

in our delivery of these workshops in our building. The most immediate that rose to mind is the

use of paperslide videos, or a one-minute video clip sent to staff members one day prior to the
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professional development with an overview of the schedule for the day. As Longenecker and

Abernathy (2013) highlight, establishing importance and relevancy of a team meeting through

sending an agenda to participants that explains the purpose of the professional development

session, positively impacts adult learning1. Staff members will foster a growth mindset about the

workshop upon receiving clear communication of the learning opportunity they will receive,

particularly as a topic that relates to their practice. I see value in staff members who lead the staff

development to receive proactive coaching from administration two days prior to the session. For

example, during my session, the speaker, Dr. Dennis Smith, a science teacher, had moments

where he was not confident in his presentation. Therefore, with an administrator paired to co-

facilitate the presentation with the teacher, a rehearsal to prepare ahead for the presentation

would benefit Dr. Smith in being fully prepared. This is a strategy that the book, Practice

Perfect, (Lemov, Woolway, & Yezzi, 2012), recommends for an educator to use in order to

minimize errors and become cultured to the use of practice in lesson delivery. The science

teacher, Dr. D. Smith, did a sufficient job in facilitating the activity, although a protocol from the

National School Reform Faculty (2019), may be more efficient for the group to engage in the

article, discuss the contents in teams and then select a speaker to provide a summary of their
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actions once the assigned time concluded. Our 12th grade assistant principal, Ms. Karen Lindsay,

then led the discussion of the academic recovery plan, opening the floor for dialogue, and using

Ted Talk videos between discussion topics. Throughout her presentation, moments arose where

staff members provided feedback about the academic recovery plan, an opportunity to record

these thoughts through an electronic medium as a Google Form, or Padlet, would have captured

the thoughts of staff members and be useful qualitative data for administrators to reflect upon

and use to revise the intervention system at our school.

Believers and Tweeners, (Muhammad, 2009), or individuals who are optimistic about

student learning and educators who are apprehensive about their impact on student learning,

were in my session, and shared opinions that represent a mix of positive and toxic culture at my

school. I enjoyed that this session allowed for us to start having discussions, at least in the

session I attended, about shifting the culture of the school from one of toxicity to one of

acknowledging the negative culture and working to improve from where we once were as a

school. One veteran math teacher, Ms. Miller, who had been at Southeast Raleigh for over a

decade, recalled the mandate she received years ago from administration to call children’s

parents ahead of the first day of school in order for families to look forward to the first day. Her
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statement rebutted against the intermittent toxic culture at our school that perpetuates feelings of

doubt and low expectations for our students. She recalled the importance and impact that high

expectations for our students had on their educational experiences at Southeast Raleigh Magnet

High School. For the facilitators of the professional development, they performed proficiently in

framing the activity1 providing the material for the session with the article reading embedded

into a Google document, the use of protocols and then small-group work to be done. Dr. Smith

and Ms. Lindsay maintained a list of airtight activities for staff to complete during the

professional development session. A moment hardly opened for staff members to deviate from

the tasks given to us.

Specifically, the professional development at my school on the introduction to equity

work and a review of the academic recovery plan provided staff members with a coherent

structure for learning. Additionally, the session provided an opportunity for staff members to

relay feedback about the intervention methods we use at our school. As Hunzicker (2011)

asserts, once the professional development becomes continuous and on-going3, staff members

will develop capacity for future professional development sessions. Additionally, staff members

may then be able to put into practice the knowledge they learned within the next school day. I
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appreciated that the professional development sessions comprised of active learning2

opportunities centered on the content (Bates and Morgan, 2018) of equity and interventions

through assigned groups and then report our findings to the entire audience in our room. I admire

the direction this professional development session went as a step forward in our staff members

becoming more data-driven3, developing a community mindset (Bates & Morgan 2018), thus

becoming more collaborative as a school.

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References

Bambrick-Santoyo, P. (2012). Leverage Leadership. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons

Inc.

Bates, C., Morgan, D. (2018). Seven Elements of Effective Professional Development. The

Reading Teacher, 71 (5). 623-626. doi: 10.1002/trtr.1674

Hunzicker, J. (2011). Effective professional development for teachers: a checklist. Professional

Development in Education, 37 (2). 177.

Lemov, D., Woolway, E., & Yezzi, K. (2012). Practice Perfect. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Longenecker, C., Abernathy, R. (2013). The eight imperatives of effective adult learning:

Designing, implementing and assessing experiences in the modern workplace. Human

Resource Management International Digest, 21 (7), 30-33. Doi: 10.1108/HRMID-10-

2013-0090.

Muhammad, A. (2009). Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff Division.

Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

National School Reform Faculty. (2019, March 1). Notetaker protocol. Retrieved from

http://www.nsrfharmony.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/text_based_seminar_0.pdf