"The primary focus of ... professional development effort[s are] encouraging and supporting teachers to deliberately practice ways to integrate technology into their teaching practice."

(Saylor and Kehrhahn, 2003).

     Crafting meaningful professional development, whether in the traditional or reform style, requires the same attention to detail, intentional decision-making and theoretical mindfulness necessary to engage student learners.  Current studies estimate that only between10-40% of participating teachers transfer new knowledge acquired in Professional Development program; such statistics represent an incredibly low return on the investment of time and resources necessary to participate in PD activities (Saylor and Kehrhahn, 2003).  Acknowledging that teacher-learners bring a variety of skill sets and levels of experience (and opinions) to the professional development process, PD designers must take the needs of their learners and the factors of effective professional development into consideration when designing any staff improvement initiatives.

     The advent of collaborative technologies can break the cycle of traditional and time-intensive face-to-face sessions, providing the opportunity for sustained efforts in professional growth to happen in asynchronous, yet collaborative environments, where teachers can work from their classrooms or in the comfort of their homes. This creates an environment in which PD can still be “continuous” yet convenient, taking individual needs of the teacher-learners into account to “provide planned training and guided, continuous practice” (Saylor and Kehrhahn, 2003).  

Professional Development Proposal: Please find my professional develop plan proposed below.

GoogleDoc Resources for Classroom Use: As a culminating project for the New LIteracies course, I developed a guide to implementing GoogleDocs as a tools to support organization, instruction, and assessment in (and outside of) the classroom. I shared this guide with my fellow teachers, prior to implementing the Digital Portfolio program, described in detail under the Teaching, Learning, and Assessments Standard.

Professional Development Virtual Visit: While peer observations provide an incredible wealth of feedback and great insight into one's own practices, barriers to orchestrating an effective peer observation program can include time, school size, and institutional infrastructures (such as block scheduling). Implementing a Virtual Visit with a fellow colleague, even from a different district, age level, and discipline allows teachers interested in pursuing such personal and professional development the means to overcome such barriers. Leveraging digital collaborative tools, such as FaceTime and GoogleDocs, allows for deeper discussion and reflection beyond the scope of the schedule and the school building.