learned to log onto a social studies teachers’ group on the Internet. She enjoyed asking a question and soliciting ideas from colleagues around the world.
Each teacher in the school was asked to develop an individualized professional growth plan in an area of special interest. Connie decided to focus on effective questioning strategies and worked with her department chairman to develop a plan for investigating the topic. The chairman provided her with articles summarizing the research on questioning strategies, and the principal recommended that she observe several teachers who were particularly skilled in questioning. During the next several weeks, Connie implemented some of the strategies she had either read about or observed firsthand. She also requested feedback on her questioning techniques from Jim after he had observed her teaching.
In addition, the district offered a series of workshops and courses that were tied to district goals. Most of these classes were taught by local teachers or administrators. Connie took the course on questioning strategies as well as a series of courses on classroom management, and she received credit on the salary schedule for doing so. The district not only encouraged teachers to be active in their professional organizations, it also contributed toward the membership fee of approved organizations. Connie joined both the National Council of Social Studies Teachers and its state affiliate. The principal, department chairman, and Connie’s colleagues frequently distributed copies of journal articles that they found interesting, and team and department meetings were often devoted to the discussion of the ideas in those articles. The district also published its own professional journal once each year, comprised exclusively of articles written by teachers in the district.
The district’s partnership with a local college served as another stimulus for reflection and productive interchange. Undergraduate students in education were frequent observers and often served as teacher aides in the school. They had many questions after they observed a class. University staff often advised teachers in setting up action research projects. School staff reciprocated by participating in the research of the university. Professors frequently taught units in the high school, and many of the undergraduate and graduate education courses were team-taught by university staff members and a teacher from the district. Late in the year, Connie was invited to share reflections on her experience as a first-year teacher with a class of college students as they prepared for their student teaching assignments.
Connie had been surprised when, shortly after she had accepted her teaching position, the personnel office asked her to complete a survey on her experience as a teaching candidate. As the year went on, she realized that surveys soliciting feedback were frequently used throughout the district. The principal and department chairpersons distributed surveys to the staff for feedback on their performance. Teachers could choose from a variety of survey instruments that gave students the opportunity to comment on the teacher and the class. All seniors were asked to complete a survey reflecting on their high school experience, and the school conducted a phone survey of randomly selected students one year and five years after their graduation to assess their high school experience and to determine their current status.
Parents were surveyed annually to determine their impressions of the school, and the principal and members of the school board participated in neighborhood coffees throughout the district to seek feedback and answer questions from members of the community. Teachers completed annual surveys for assessing the school’s improvement efforts and identifying areas for improvement. They also completed self-evaluation forms on how effectively their teams functioned. It was clear that seeking and considering feedback on performance was the norm both within the school and throughout the district.
Connie considered her common planning time with the members of her interdisciplinary team and several members of her history team to be her most valuable resource. The members of the interdisciplinary team used some of their time to refine integrated curriculum units and to discuss how to apply what they were learning about authentic assessment. Much of this time was spent discussing the students they had in common, identifying individuals who seemed to be having problems, and developing unified strategies for helping those students. Because the history team did not share the same students, its discussions focused more on ideas for teaching particular units and assessing students’ understanding in general.
At the end of the semester, Connie worked with her teams to analyze the results of student performance on the common comprehensive assessments the teams had developed. First, they compared the students’ achievements to the anticipated proficiency levels the teams had set. Then they compared the results to their longitudinal study of past student performance. They identified areas of concern and then brainstormed steps that they might take to improve the level of student achievement. Finally, they wrote a brief summary of their analysis and improvement plan and sent copies to the principal and their department chairpersons.
Connie felt there was never enough time to do everything that was required, but she appreciated the efforts the school had made to provide teachers with time to plan, reflect, and collaborate. In addition to the teacher planning days at the start of the year, the five half-days and three full days set aside for professional development, and the common preparation periods allocated for teaching teams, teachers were given two hours every two weeks for planning and conferencing. This was possible because a few years earlier the faculty had agreed to extend the school day by 10 minutes each day in exchange for a two-hour block every other Wednesday when teachers could work together on joint projects. The principal emphasized the importance of teacher collaboration by assuring her faculty that she would provide substitutes for any team that needed more time to complete its work. She also had an enlisted corps of parent volunteers who would substitute for this purpose as needed.
That spring, teaching teams were invited to develop proposals for summer curriculum projects. The proposal form called on each team to describe what it wanted to accomplish, how the project was related to departmental and school visions, and what the project would produce. Connie’s interdisciplinary team submitted a proposal for creating two units that linked American literature, United States history, and scientific principles. After their plan was approved by the faculty committee that reviewed project proposals, the team members coordinated their calendars to find a week during the summer break when everyone would be available.
On three different occasions during the year, Connie participated in small-group discussions on proposals developed by different school improvement task forces. The task forces—composed of teachers, parents, and students—were convened to generate strategies for addressing priorities that had been identified by the school. One task force submitted a proposal to increase student participation in co-curricular activities. Another offered strategies for teaching students to accept increasing responsibility for their learning as they advanced from their freshman to senior years. The third proposed a systematic way of monitoring each student’s academic progress and responding to any student who was in danger of failing. Each proposal included the criteria with which the long-term impact of its recommendations should be assessed. Connie learned that every teacher in the school was expected to participate in these improvement task forces from time to time, and that one of the primary responsibilities of each task force was to build a consensus in support of its recommendations. It became apparent that proposals often had to be revised several times before that consensus could be reached.
At the end of the school year, Jim asked Connie to reflect on her overall experience. She acknowledged that not every lesson had gone well and that there had been days when she was frustrated and perplexed. Teaching had turned out to be much more difficult and complex than she had ever imagined. She had expected that her enthusiasm for history would be contagious and that her students would learn to love the subject just as she had. She now had to acknowledge that some did not seem to care for history at all, and she wondered why she had been unable to generate their enthusiasm. She had been certain that she would be able to reach every student, and when one of her students elected to withdraw from school saying, “This school sucks!” she questioned why she had been unable to connect with him. She admitted she did not understand where her responsibility for student learning ended and the student’s
