The workshop is done--How does anyone know that staff learned what they needed to learn? How does anyone know that the content of the workshop day is now common knowledge among the attendees? Two key indicators are feedback and evaluation. Feedback from participants is what the presenter uses to fine-tune his or her professional learning delivery.…

For educators to be successful in ensuring that students are college-and career-ready, they must have high-quality professional learning. This article describes how the foundation and guidance for evaluating the impact of professional learning can be enhanced with the "Standards for Professional Learning Tool" (Learning Forward, 2011).…

What happens when teachers are given funding and time to identify and develop targeted and innovative professional learning? This article focuses on lessons learned from grants funded through the California Department of Education that were designed to do just this. As the state and the nation consider the best approaches to professional learning…

This article describes the actions taken by the members of the school leadership team at McWhirter Elementary Professional Development Laboratory School in Webster, Texas, when the results of the state reading assessment in spring 2010, had taken a sudden and dramatic drop from the previous year. The team designed an action research study to…

In designing professional learning for system-level leaders, two participant roles emerge as key: learners of content and agents of change. For learners, the principles of strong instruction apply. Exposure to content must occur repeatedly, be connected to prior knowledge, and is most effective when communities of learners work together. As change…

Gathering evidence on the outcomes of any professional learning experience can be a challenging and complicated task. It involves consideration of a wide variety of perceptual and contextual issues, some obvious to education leaders and others not. Those who want to succeed in this process may find the following points helpful: (1) Always begin…

This article describes an initiative designed to improve the content-area literacy skills of all students at a Massachusetts high school and to demonstrate the important role teacher leaders play in bridging the various elements of school improvement efforts. Meeting students' language and literacy needs within content-area classrooms is becoming…

Every teacher can recall a range of experiences in professional development workshops. Some of these may have provided opportunities in which teachers felt engaged, empowered, and supported as learners, while others felt disconnected from practice. Although these authors recognize that workshops, particularly those with no follow-up support, are…

Describes the long-range efforts to develop a comprehensive, multitiered multicultural education program in the Columbus (Ohio) Public School District. The article includes discussions on the philosophical framework underlying the program, staff development, curriculum changes, program planning and evaluation, course descriptions, and program…

Three sets of relationships between evaluation and staff development are identified: (1) evaluation for staff development in which data from evaluations suggest the program content; (2) evaluation of staff development in which evaluative activities become opportunities for problem solving; and (3) evaluation of staff development in which…

Describes how an Alabama school system incorporated the National Staff Development Council's Standards for Staff Development into a district-wide effort to improve staff development. Evaluation of the professional development effort was a top priority, with participant input an important component. Professional development was designed to be…

Staff development planners, trainers, and evaluators can increase the impact of the staff development activities when they view their work from multiple perspectives using the Centric Reflection Model. The model offers a visual representation of various types of reflection that can occur in training design, delivery, and evaluation. (SM)

Three staff development evaluation techniques are presented as alternatives to satisfaction questionnaires. The techniques--stages of concern, levels of use, and component assessment-- underscore the ideas that: (1) New teaching skills will be used in the classroom; (2) Finding out about classroom practices requires individual interaction with…

Examines the impact of administrator staff development programs on individuals and districts. Steps to help school districts improve evaluation efforts include examining school district culture and its support for development; ensuring that there are clear objectives and adequate resources for evaluation; and linking program goals to effective…

Goals for the development of building level staff development in the Greenwich, Connecticut evaluation model include: (1) evaluating information sharing; (2) evaluating staff interests and concerns; (3) evaluating the acquisition of new skills, techniques, and strategies; and (4) evaluating the sense of community and commitment among staff in the…