Establishing a Collaborative Professional Development Team

Video Transcription

In this tutorial, I'll walk you through the steps of establishing a collaborative professional development team. We'll begin by discussing why you might wish to start using collaborative professional development in the first place. I'll then outline for you exactly how to begin. And I'll share specific steps that you can implement to develop your plan. Let's get started.

First, why might you consider implementing collaborative professional development? Although collaborative professional development may not yet be considered a common practice, more and more districts are finding that engaging in both the development and the process of collaborative PD is a really powerful process that is aligned with numerous theories, including adult learning theory, in general, as well as situated learning theory, networked learning theory, and sociocultural theory.

How do you know when you might want to embark on this journey towards a collaborative professional growth or development plan? Well, anytime two or more teachers are finding that they are sharing similar goals or would like to arrive at similar outcomes as one another, collaborative professional development might be a good option. For example, if there is a new initiative at your school or in your district that you are going to be involved with implementing, you may wish to get together with some other people who are going to be fulfilling that same role to embark on this collaborative journey. Or if there is a new instructional practice that you would like to implement, again, you may seek out teachers who have similar goals, and work together towards meeting those goals.

If you've decided that you do want to establish a collaborative professional development group, you can follow just a few simple steps to get the process started. First, you're going to need to decide who is going to be involved. Think of who in your building or in your district might be interested in pursuing some professional development goals that are similar to yours. Also take note of colleagues with whom you already have a solid working relationship. People who meet both of these criteria would be excellent candidates for members on your collaborative professional development team.

Once you have your team established, it's time to start developing your plan. So I will share with you here some specific steps that you can follow with your team in order to get your plan started. Step one is going to be to create a shared document. It can be helpful to have a document that you all can access just so everyone is always on the same page and everyone can see all of the documentation that your team has been working on.

You may consider simply using professional growth plan templates that are already found in your teacher evaluation model or templates that are created or endorsed by your district. If there aren't any such templates available to you or if you determine that the available templates are not going to meet the specific needs of this group, you can try searching for templates online. Some particularly helpful resources might be found from the states of Rhode Island and New York.

The next step in developing your collaborative professional development plan will be determining the approach that you want to use. As a group, you will need to decide what specifically you want the outcome of your learning to be. What exactly do you want to learn through this process?

The next step will be to expand upon these goals and actually put them in writing in the form of SMART goals. Remember SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Again, ideally, you will develop these SMART goals collaboratively as a team. And these goals should include action steps and the metrics that you are going to use as a team to measure just how effective your professional development actually was. Often, observation data and student achievement data will be used for this purpose.

After developing your SMART goals, you will want to plan for evaluation. In this step, you'll determine how you will report the progress towards meeting your professional development goals and then, ultimately, the completion or the achievement of those goals. And you'll also need to decide to whom you are going to be doing this reporting.

If your collaborative PD plan is linked in any way to the process of teacher evaluation, then, most likely, it will be your principal or whichever administrator is serving as your primary evaluator that will be getting your reporting here. But if this plan is not related to teacher evaluation, then really, it might just be you and your colleagues or your critical friends group that is going to be evaluating progress here towards meeting these goals.

Finally, your collaborative group needs to develop a schedule. When are you going to get together to work on your plan and training? Your collaboration schedule is definitely going to vary depending on the goals, and the objectives, and the needs of the individuals in the group.

Ideally, collaboration should occur at least weekly. You may find that you will need to meet less frequently than that for any number of reasons, but you really should not be meeting any less than quarterly.

Your schedule should include not just meeting dates, but also anticipated dates for completion of specific targets and specific benchmarks along the way. The schedule should also indicate who is responsible for the completion of each target and benchmark. You'll likely find that administrators are going to be supportive of collaboration on your professional development and growth plans. But you may want to just give a heads up or get the OK from your administration before you embark upon this journey.

And definitely, after you and your collaborative team have narrowed your focus and identified goals and followed the steps of this plan, you're going to probably want to share that plan with your administrator so that they are aware of the work that you are doing. And they may be interested, as well, to see the progress that you're making. And to help you celebrate the achievement of your goals.

Now it's your turn to stop and reflect. Can you think of others in your school or district who might have instructional goals that are similar to yours? Or who might be interested in pursuing some collaborative professional development opportunities with you? As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you may want to explore the Additional Resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skill set

Thank you for joining me today. Have a great day.