Powerful Conversations About Staff Development
Self-Assessment Project Information Sheet

In July of 2002, the State Board of Education adopted Professional Development Standards for Alabama school systems. The standards are based on the National Staff Development Council’s Standards for Staff Development.

Your school has been selected to participate in a process developed by the Alabama Best Practices Center called “Powerful Conversations about Professional Development Self-Assessment.” This fact sheet briefly describes the process and the role that participants will play in the self-assessment.

Description of the Process
The “Powerful Conversations about Professional Development” Self-Assessment Project involves a two-hour facilitated conversation with a representative sample of faculty members. After a short tour of the school, the facilitators will lead the participants through a thorough discussion of four of the most powerful state professional development standards: Data-Driven, Learning Communities, Research-Based and Quality Teaching. View self-assessment rubric

Your Role
During the conversation, participants will use a rubric to gauge their current practice and identify both strengths and needs. You will identify current practices and activities which support the standards and descriptors on the rubric, decide on priority areas and discuss possible strategies to begin work in those areas. Remember, this is a facilitated discussion, not an evaluation. This is an opportunity for you and your faculty to learn more about the standards and to discover how they apply to your school’s current staff development practices and activities. During the self-assessment, you will be encouraged to give examples of your practices that are aligned with the standards, to ask questions to clarify your understanding and to share ideas about future activities and planning.

During the self-assessment, you’ll discuss each of the four standards and their related evidences with your colleagues and work with the facilitators to develop a consensus answer for each evidence. Enclosed with this fact sheet is a copy of the Self-Assessment Rubric and a Glossary of Terms that we hope you’ll review before the self-assessment. Some teachers like to review and complete the rubric in advance to reflect their own views on their school’s practices. Others like to review the rubric but would rather wait to hear the discussion and ask questions about each standard before responding. However, there is no advance work or study required before the self-assessment.

Because this is a self-assessment, not an evaluation, the data gathered is for your information and use in planning for future staff development. It will not be shared with anyone beyond your school. It is our hope, however, in the future to create a process for sharing with other interested schools any best and promising practices identified during discussions.

Follow-up
At the conclusion of the self-assessment process, your school will be given materials describing powerful professional development practices in an Alabama elementary school. This tape can be shared with the entire faculty as a follow-up to help describe the self-assessment process and what was learned. You will also be invited to join the Powerful Conversations Network with the more than 130 schools involved in the process to meet and discuss staff development best practices and implementation ideas.

For more information, contact Cathy Gassenheimer or Vikki Miller at (334) 279-1886.