Delivering Authentic Staff Development

Introduction: The State of Staff Development Activities All educators have been involved in staff development activities on some level. Typically, university personnel utilize the month of August to help a local school district satisfy its requirements for in-service and staff development. By September we have settled back into our on teaching routines and the schools have done the same. Only a passing comment about the staff development activities remain. The smallest portion of what we know about quality staff development will have been implemented in school districts. Few school districts utilize staff development activities as a part of their overall instructional strategy. School districts are too tolerant of practices and activities that are superficial, ineffective, and disingenuous. At best they are wasteful of school resources and at worst, even harmful. Many districts and teachers tend to view staff development as an isolated activity whose purpose is to satisfy some bureaucratic imperative, rather than to serve as significant strategy for student learning. We sit passively as if to accept the notion that the knowledge and skill required to be a good teacher can be delivered in a preschool workshop. Further, we implicitly accept, as good educational practice, the idea that it is sufficient to simply expose teachers to new ideas in workshops and group activities. Sparks and Hirsh (1997) discuss a paradigm shift in staff development that will render sustained effects in teaching and learning behaviors: "Soon to be gone forever, we hope, are the days when educators (usually teachers) sit relatively passively while an 'expert' exposes them to new ideas or 'trains' them in new practices, and the success of the effort is judged by a 'happiness quotient' that measures participants' satisfaction with the experience and their off-the-cuff assessment regarding its usefulness (p. 1). " The reason so many students do not learn is because they are surrounded by teachers who do not know how to teach high standards. Many administrators believe that teachers only have to be induced or perhaps threatened into better practice. The basis for such beliefs rests on the assumption that teachers are withholding their best efforts. Consequently, they believe motivational speakers and consultants are sufficient to improve teaching and student learning. According to Lieberman (1995), teachers must be role players in staff development activities by taking an active role in the process. She suggests that school policymakers need to have an awareness of strategies beyond direct teaching that's "life span that is not one or two days" (p. 593). Administrators have become dependent upon outsiders who have mastered the question, "What am I supposed to do, to teach, to tests, etc." Little attention is paid to habits of thought and practice that are pervasive in the modem classroom. Sparks and Hirsh (1997) indicate that utilization of outside "experts" should be only a portion of staff development, because engaging of administrators, peer teachers, and students in the process "enhances learning in its own context. " (p.11). Spending more money on existing staff development activities is not likely to have significant effects on either the teachers nor the performance of their students. The fact that most school districts do not have a coherent staff development structure is evidence that additional staff development funding would not likely be a worthy use of already limited resources. Tradition, habit, and "this is the way we have always done it" behavior are bigger barriers to effective staff development than money, time, or best practice research. Critics to traditional staff development programs are pointing to high costs involved with the "go and get" and the "sit and get" method of staff development traditionally used in schools. This typically involves the teacher having to leave the classroom to attend a workshop or similar event. …