Developing Professional Learning in Science

I have been given the opportunity to help design a professional learning day in January for the science. I thought that my current course for graduate school would be a great time to apply what I am learning about effective professional learning. I hope that the day in January can be a starting point for ongoing support and time for teachers to implement new strategies into the spring semester, in an effort to model what effective professional learning can look like.


I tried to design the learning day and future plans around the 5 principles of effective professional learning, as presented by Allison Gulamhussein:

• Professional learning should be significant and ongoing, allowing for time to learn new strategies and wrestle with implementation.
• Ongoing support during implementation.
• Initial exposure that is active and engages teachers to make sense of new practice
• Modeling to help teachers understand a new practice
• Specific to the discipline and grade-level

The rough drafts of my plans are linked below and feedback would be appreciated!

Science Professional Learning Outline

Big Hairy Audacious Goal and 3-Column Table

Backwards Design Plan

Resources:

Gulamhussein, A. (2013). Teaching the Teachers Effective Professional Development in an Era of High Stakes Accountability. Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffingstudents/Teaching-the-Teachers-Effective-Professional-Development-in-an-Era-of-High-Stakes-Accountability/Teaching-the-Teachers-Full-Report.pdf