GUIDE FOR EDUCATION

BUILDING BETTER DIGITAL DISTRICTS: WHY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT MATTERS

WHERE TO GOTeacher quality and student achievement: the proven connection 2

Professional development: key to better classroom instruction 3

Understanding challenges 3

Creating a continuous and collaborative process 4

Moving beyond the one-size-fits-all model 5

Professional learning communities: encouraging collaboration 6

Products that matter 7

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GUIDE FOR EDUCATION

Many factors contribute to a student’s academic performance, including small class sizes, sustainable school budgets, individual motivation, and parental involvement. But research suggests that, while all these things matter, teacher effectiveness has a greater impact on learning than any other factor across a digital district. Great schools simply cannot exist without great teachers.

When it comes to student performance on reading and math tests at the K-12 level, a teacher is estimated to have two to three times the impact of any other factor. More than two decades of research findings are unequivocal about the connection between teacher quality and student learning. In its 2010 report, “Team Up for 21st Century Teaching and Learning,” the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future echoed its earlier “What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future” report that placed teaching at the core of the “three simple premises” outlined in its blueprint for reforming the nation’s schools:

1. What teachers know and can do is the most important influence on what students learn.

2. Recruiting, preparing, and retaining good teachers is the central strategy for improving our schools.

3. School reform cannot succeed unless it focuses on creating the conditions under which teachers can teach and teach well.

TEACHER QUALITY AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT: THE PROVEN CONNECTIONA 2010 report by the Economic Policy Institute, “How to Fix our Schools,” indicates that high-quality teachers are the most important factor in a child’s education. Studies across the nation consistently demonstrate the impact of teacher effectiveness in increasing student performance:

• In Texas, the increase in student test scores can be traced to an instructor’s effectiveness, and it is 20 times more likely to improve student achievement than any other variable.

• In Los Angeles, the difference between the performance of a student taught by a teacher in the top 25 percent of the district (top quartile) and a student assigned to a teacher in the bottom 25 percent of the district averaged 10 percentile points on a standardized math test.

• In North Carolina, a strong teacher in a classroom has 14 times the impact on student achievement versus decreasing the class size by five students.¹

When it comes to student performance on reading and math tests at the K-12 level, a teacher is estimated to have two to three times the impact of any other factor.

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GUIDE FOR EDUCATION

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: KEY TO BETTER CLASSROOM INSTRUCTIONToday, the role of the teacher has evolved dramatically from the traditional lecture-style model to include interactive personalized learning, 1:1 instruction, and flipped classroom methods. However, the goals of the classroom experience continue to remain the same: improve student learning and accelerate student outcomes.

While much of this evolution is based on new ideas around instruction, many of these new methods are made possible by the rise of technology in and out of the classroom. While it’s easy to assume teachers have a natural inclination toward understanding their technology options (and all possible benefits), this is not always the case. This means technology must be part of the discussion, not only as a means of delivering better training but as part of the curriculum itself.

As the emphasis on student outcomes continues to escalate, ongoing professional development (PD) for educators has become recognized as key to improving classroom instruction. The most important investment a school board and administrators can make is to ensure that teachers continue to learn. For teachers to be as effective as possible, they need to continually expand their knowledge and skills to implement the best educational practices in their classrooms.

UNDERSTANDING CHALLENGESWhile many districts recognize the need for career development opportunities, research indicates that some are still struggling to understand how teachers most effectively learn new skills and then use that understanding to shape these programs. Districts have typically assumed that teacher learning is straightforward, with teachers merely needing to be presented with information about effective teaching strategies. But research suggests that, like with students, teachers’ learning processes are more complex.

The most glaring problem to date has not been a lack of professional development opportunities. To the contrary, professional development for educators has been included in every major initiative designed to improve student performance. The bigger problem is that the quality of these programs has been inconsistent, and there has been no consensus on what constitutes quality. Many training activities stop short of producing their intended results; they point out problems with traditional teaching but offer little help in changing what happens in the classroom and provide no opportunities for participants to practice what they learn.

For teachers to be as effective as possible, they need to continually expand their knowledge and skills to implement the best educational practices in their classrooms.

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GUIDE FOR EDUCATION

If the goal of successful K-12 learning is to improve student performance through changes in teaching practices, and if changes in teaching practices are likely to result only from high-quality professional development, then that leads to a basic question: What are the characteristics of high-quality professional development?

An effective professional development model that enables teachers to prepare students for better outcomes and to successfully assume adult responsibilities for citizenship and work typically includes the following qualities:

• Functions as an ongoing, integral part of the teaching experience

• Includes personalized, blended learning opportunities

• Prioritizes collaboration and uses resources like professional learning communities (PLC)

CREATING A CONTINUOUS AND COLLABORATIVE PROCESS One of the most basic requirements of effective professional development is that it needs to be a continual process of learning and improvement, not a single-shot, one-day workshop. It needs to empower individual educators and communities of educators to make complex decisions; to identify and solve problems; and to connect theory, practice, and student outcomes.

With the growing use of 21st-century learning tools, educational institutions are increasingly focused on providing the supportive productive environment educators need to reach, teach, and support each student’s learning needs and potential. To that end, many training opportunities consist of sporadic workshops, intended to train instructors on the nuances of integrating classroom technology. This model of professional development, used widely across districts, has often been criticized as presenting a “patchwork of opportunities” that are “short-term, episodic, and disconnected” from teachers’ in-class practice.2 While it has some benefits, it fails to support the skills teachers need to build a sustainable and successful digital district.

Research is clear that the most useful teacher professional development plan needs to be embedded, collaborative, and continual. Meaningful career development involves supporting teachers in figuring out how to incorporate technology as a seamless part of their daily practice. With the growing arsenal of technology resources available to today’s teachers, it’s important the district spends time thinking about how to deploy these products

Meaningful professional development involves supporting teachers in figuring out how to incorporate technology as a seamless part of their daily practice.

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GUIDE FOR EDUCATION

and services in a way that improves student learning and helps further the goals of the digital district.

Effective professional development also factors in the time for teachers to develop ideas and strategies, to plan and practice with colleagues, implement these strategies in the classroom, receive feedback, measure results, and reflect on what teaching practices work best versus what might need to be tweaked.

MOVING BEYOND THE ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL MODELWe’ve known for a long time that no two students learn the same way. So why should learning for teachers still be one-size-fits-all? As instruction becomes increasingly personalized for students, teachers are ready for those same principles to drive their ongoing professional development.

Teachers stand to benefit greatly from the same type of personalized, blended learning opportunities that they offer their students. However, in most school systems, teacher preparation tends to remain constrained, inflexible, and disconnected from shifts in the classroom as well as from emerging opportunities to support learning.

Thomas Arnett of the Clayton Christensen Institute explains: “Emerging personalized learning models are transforming the role of the teacher. Teachers in these models find themselves acting more as coach and mentor than as deliverers of direct instruction. As such, the skills they need to successfully fulfill their jobs are shifting, but many of the programs that train them remain static.”3

Some districts are leading the way by providing educators the ability to personalize their learning. Others are creating district-level policies that encourage teachers to provide and participate in trainings tailored to their needs, instead of limiting them to school-mandated professional development that may not align with their needs. Professional development that identifies areas of interest and those that need improvement, and infuses research and theory with practical training, can become an effective method of helping teachers grow in their chosen profession — and ultimately benefit students.

Teachers stand to benefit greatly from the same type of personalized, blended learning opportunities that they offer their students.

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GUIDE FOR EDUCATION

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES: ENCOURAGING COLLABORATION

Collaboration is key to improving teaching across districts, and many studies have focused on how teachers learn from one another in school settings and how that influences their job satisfaction and responsibility for student learning. Increasingly, districts are forming professional learning communities to encourage teachers and school leaders to work together, share best practices, and develop materials and activities that improve curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Effective professional learning communities (PLC) promote collective responsibility, alignment of goals, and accountability for results. They also shift the paradigm from focusing on instructing to focusing on learning, creating an environment where teachers and staff work collaboratively and hold themselves accountable for results. Many PLCs operate with the understanding that one important key to improved learning for students is continual job-embedded learning for educators.

Typically, three crucial questions drive a PLC:

• What do we want each student to learn?

• How will we know when each student has learned it?

• How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?

In a traditional school, if some students have not adequately grasped the material, the teacher either takes time to help under-performing students or moves on to ensure the students who understand the material don’t lose momentum. With a PLC, however, teachers and staff address learning discrepancies together by designing strategies to ensure that struggling students receive additional time and support, no matter who their teacher is.

PLCs have become crucial in designing systematic school-wide strategies dedicated to helping students achieve their potential, and they need to be utilized as part of any effective ongoing professional development program. Research suggests that actively engaging teachers in PLCs will increase their professional knowledge and enhance student learning. Schools that leverage the benefits of a PLC tend to structure their professional development efforts toward integrating teacher learning into communities of practice with the goal of meeting the educational needs of their students through collaboratively examining their day-to-day practice.

Collaboration is key to improving teaching across districts, and many studies have focused on how teachers learn from one another in school settings, influencing their job satisfaction and responsibility for student learning.

Research suggests that actively engaging teachers in PLCs will increase their professional knowledge and enhance student learning.

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GUIDE FOR EDUCATION

SOURCES

1 “Working with Teachers to Develop Fair and Reliable Measure of Effective Teaching,” The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2010

2 DeMonte, J. “High-Quality Professional Development for Teachers.” Center for American Progress. July 2013.

3 Arnett, T. “Why teacher preparation programs lack the will to change.” Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation blog. December 2013.

Cover image credit: Fred Rockwood via Flickr, used under Creative Commons 2.0 license.

© 2016 Lenovo. All rights reserved. Lenovo is not responsible for photographic or typographic errors. Lenovo and the Lenovo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. v2.00 April 2016.

To learn more about how Lenovo can drive effective professional development programs for your digital district, visit www.lenovo.com/education or contact eduteam@lenovo.com for more details. Follow us on Twitter at @LenovoEducation.

PRODUCTS THAT MATTERLenovo’s extensive portfolio of education-built products and services helps IT decision makers do more than just solve today’s problems. As the world’s leading provider of education technology, Lenovo believes that better IT can transform the important work of building tomorrow one student at a time. Lenovo’s broad portfolio of education-built products and services, backed by dedicated education experts, empowers IT to deliver on the promise of a responsive, reliable, digital learning ecosystem. We also partner with leading professional development experts who can help your district develop customized learning and training solutions.

Lenovo’s commitment to education includes finding better ways to connect students and staff to the resources they need to create, collaborate, and succeed, as well as partnering with industry leaders to offer solutions and services that empower effective professional development programs to help educators drive better student outcomes.