Throughout the Year: Adult Teacher Professional Development

1. Throughout the Year:Adult Teacher ProfessionalDevelopment Carol Klotz Gittinger Great Oaks Career Development Campuses

2. How did we start? • Took a hard look at our present PD Was it meeting our staff needs? Was it meaningful and building? • Recognized a need for ongoing PD • Harry Snyder’s connection with Heather Sass • Heather hired as Manager of School Improvement for Great Oaks • Harry, Heather, and Carol meet to plan PD

3. What was the platform? • National Research Center for Career and Technical Education materials and Heather Sass’s expertise. • Determined where we were at in the year to determine our immediate needs (middle of the year at this point). • Designed a plan that would build on skills and sustain us through the next 18 months.

4. The Original Plan… • Fridays worked for us. Instructors have 16 Fridays (makeup days) to work; workday hours are 10:30 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. • Started with 4 hour blocks of time, including lunch • Developed a timeline for PD for full-time instructors from January 11, 2013 through June 6, 2014 (see “Timeline” handout)

5. Plan for Professional Learning • We developed these for each session • First four sessions were four hours • Complaints from instructors as to the time commitment • Scaled back to 2 hours, brought lunch • This allowed time for various other duties before students came in at 3 p.m.

6. First year successes? • Instructors did use strategies • Instructors were able to observe other instructors give mini-lessons • Instructors able to try instructional strategies on peers to see if they worked • Instructors given a multitude of resources

7. What were the short-comings? • Some resented being told how to teach • “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset • Resented time they could devote to other projects • Instructors had to travel to the central campus for training and back to their campus for instruction on these days

8. End of Year 2013 Planning • Designed to set teachers up for success for the beginning of the year. • All Curriculum Maps developed and/or updated • All Syllabi updated and ready for 2014 • First two week of class were mapped out to set student and instructor up for success

9. Strategic Compensation Comes Along • High School goes to Marzano • Marzano Art and Science of Teaching Teacher Evaluation Model Learning Map • Consists of 41 Key strategies which are organized into 9 Design Questions

10. High Performance Classroom • Instructors trained to model the high performance workplace with the high performance classroom • Student Learning Goals and their importance

11. November 22, 2013 • The dreaded…”We need to talk….” • Instead of the session, we met and had honest and open feedback about the process • We learned and we redefined…

12. How did we change? • We had a difficult winter as you did and had to do more makeup…this cut into the PD • We listened and adjusted our sessions to one per month or sometimes twice a month • Yes, things slowed down. • We reworked the calendar…gained their trust.

13. Where do we go from here? • High School has embraced the I-Observation Model from Marzano, and we are about a year behind them. • We have new staff and will need to start again. • We realize to have systemic change, we need to embrace a professional development model that will sustain our staff and be ongoing.

14. What were our staff takeaways? • Sometimes we are uncomfortable learning new methods. • We see what it is like to “sit” in a chair for too long. • We learn more when we are engaged. • We can be uncomfortable when giving feedback.

15. Your experiences?? • What have you done to successfully conduct Professional Development in you career training centers?

16. Questions and Comments • Carol Gittinger, AWD Director Great Oaks • 513-612-5793 • gittingc@greatoaks.com