Students could be grouped differently than in their regular classes, forming larger and smaler classes across grade levels. Because the public often perceives time for teacher learning during the work day as robbing students, strategies need to be in place to inform the internal and external publics how students directly benefit from the time allocated to teacher development. The communication with parents and the general public must be continuous. I strongly urge teachers to tell their students what they do and what they learn in study groups. The day after a study group meets is a great learning opportunity for students.
Students go home and tell their parents.
One outcome of the Whole Faculty Study Group structure is realizing that professional development includes various models that interact with each other to make a more dynamic whole. At the beginning of the study group process, faculties generally have seen study groups as separate from professional development days. They saw study groups and professional development days as separate from specific whole-faculty training events at the school. By the end of the first year, faculties were more able to see and to develop professional development plans that had various staff development strategies or models feeding each other. In these schools, what teachers did in study groups to become more skillful in the classroom enabled them to see more clearly the need for a more integrated and holistic approach to professional development.