Professional Development for Improving Teaching Strategies

Bernard Williams

EDU-523-O500

July 14, 2021

Dr. Theresa Meyer

After carrying out the field experience on PD, I prepared the presentation on professional development and shared it with the principal, my mentor, and teacher regarding this field work. After being interviewed on my CLC presentation, my teacher and principal mentor appreciated my work giving useful feedback. We thoroughly discussed all the slides noticing all the improvements, like in which ways the presentation will draw the attention of teachers, how it will keep them focused and engaged, and that there will be accountability of teachers. After thorough discussion, my respected teacher and mentor noticed that the presentation was introductory but very appealing which could be easily followed and that some more visuals could be used. He thought that addition of some more visuals will make the presentation better and visually more appealing. He gave me two suggestions regarding staff engagement. The first is to begin with sharing of personal communication like how much they know and what they think about the Professional Learning Communities, and the second was to include movement into the staff activities.

I did not include the section of accountability, which makes the teachers accountable, in my presentation paper which my mentor and teacher disliked. He said that accountability helps make the teachers accountable due to which they will show interest in learning new teaching strategies, and it will maximize the teaching methodologies like Professional Learning Communities. By including accountability, teachers will keep in mind that their performance will be analyzed and evaluated when the PD ends. My respected mentor gave me two suggestions. The first was addition of movements in class sessions which encourages the teachers to get up and carry out class activities instead of sitting the whole time. The second suggestion was that they should discuss the ways to improve the Professional Learning Communities.

The reflection given by my respected teacher and mentor regarding PLC (Professional Learning Communities) offered me some useful ideas for improvement of my presentation. I have now thought of using three suggestions given by teacher into my PD presentation. The first suggestion is that personal communication and staff activities will be included which will help them understand and apply the professional learning communities. The second suggestion is about adding some more visuals and movements. It will require teachers to get up and move to visuals and posters for teaching different things. The third suggestion is that I will add the section of accountability in order to make teachers more responsible and accountable.

PSEL Standards 6 and & and Implications for Future Practice

In future time as a leader, I intend to use standard 6 for the purpose of improvement in my staff. Collaboration among leaders, teachers and staff is important if we want to improve our activities. We collaborate in order to achieve the expected student learning outcomes. In the future, as a leader I will empower the staff and support and appreciate their efforts regarding teaching methodologies. This will encourage the teachers to create new teaching strategies in order to apply them in our schools.

And regarding standard seven, I will plan to make a teaching methodology, a learning community, for the purpose of collaboration among the staff and results oriented PD for the staff and teachers. It will result in improving student learning outcomes. As a dynamic leader in the future, I will encourage personal communication, reflection and continual teaching improvements.

References

National Policy Board for Educational Administration (2015). Professional standards for educational leaders. NPBEA, 2015. Reston, VA: Author.