Don't Rely on Your Curriculum Coordinator Part II

"My, people come and go so quickly here!"  worried Dorothy Gale in the 1939 classic movie, The Wizard of Oz."  Today, I have a new boss, our new Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum.  My Curriculum Coordinator counterpart for STEM is leaving the position at the end of the work day today to become a principal.  That leaves, me, one year in, much higher on the seniority schedule in the department than I care to be.  That alone should be reason enough not to rely on Your Curriculum Coordinator.

I have come to think of central office Curriculum positions as the Wikipedia of professional development.  Wikipedia has found its niche in the landscape of acceptable resources, if only as a first start from which to link to many other legitimate sites for information gathering.

Likewise, central office curriculum people can point teachers to a variety of useful resources, events, colleagues, professional reads, blogs and websites on a variety of topics, but the development of a Personal Learning Network is ultimately the pleasant responsibility of each individual teacher.

Now, as promised, on to the last three Standards for Professional Development in Ohio.
Think about the last PD event you attended.  How would you evaluate it according to these standards?


4.  High Quality Professional Development (HQPD) includes varied learning experiences that accommodate individual educator's knowledge and skills.

• Does professional development result in new learning for you, or is it a repetition of concepts you have mastered?

• Does PD include varied activities such as face-to-face, reading, multimedia, creation and curation of resources, collaboration, research?

5.  HQPD is evaluated by the short and long term impact on professional practice and achievment of all students.

• Can you connect professional development in a meaningful way to the progress and/or achievment of your students?

• Do you have short term and long term goals that you are tracking, and are you pursuing professional development to help you along the way to those goals?

6. HQPD results in the acquisition, enhancement or refinement of skills and knowledge.

• Are you more effective? Is your job more fun?  Do you have more energy for continuous improvement as a result of the PD events you have attended?

• Have professional development events lit a fire in you for more of the same?

If the professional development in your life drains rather than energizes your sprit, know that a world of support, learning, and engagement awaits you when you learn to harness the resources of Web 2.0.