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Running head: GAPSS Part A

Current Learning Reality and GAPSS Part A

Tracy Kienel Castleberry
PL & Technology Innovation-ITEC 7460
Kennesaw State University
Fall 2014

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Running head: GAPSS Part A

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GAPSS Part A

Part A: Professional Learning Current Reality

Introduction

Woodstock High School is a standard 9-12 secondary school located in southern

Cherokee County in the Metro Atlanta Area. Student enrollment as of 2013-2014 was 1,952
students, with demographics as follows: 14.2% Hispanic/Latino, 2.4% Asian, 10% Black, 69%
White and 3% Multiracial. 32% of the student body qualify for free or reduced lunch benefits.
Woodstock High School employs 111 teachers, 37% of which hold gifted endorsement and 30%
of which hold Cherokee County School systems Teach21 endorsement (Woodstock High
School Improvement Plan, 2013).

Vision

According to the Standards for Professional Learning, Today's educators are held
accountable for preparing all students to meet increasingly rigorous curriculum outcomes and
academic standard to be ready for careers and college (Learning Forward, 2011, p. 12). In
other words, expectations for educators are not becoming more relaxed, they are picking up
intensity, year by year. Technology can be used to help increase the effectiveness of education,

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but it must be used in the right way. In the Standards for Professional learning, educator
effectiveness is how well the educators are able to meet performance expectations and create
conditions for effective learning (Learning Forward, 2011, p. 39).

Technology can help to create opportunities to access information that enriches practice
(Learning forward, 2011, p. 60).
At Woodstock High School, the vision for technology use is very specific and is only
meant to be used if it enhances student performance. Mr. Michael Manzella, Assistant
Principal, is the head of curriculum and instruction at Woodstock High School, supervises the
schools STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) initiative and discussed
the schools technology vision with me. Mr. Manzella explained that the technology vision at
WHS is that technology should be implemented when it has a direct impact on enhancing
student learning. This is instead of buying technology and putting it in a room and letting the
students play with it, it is actually only to be used if it helps to enhance practices, engage
students and increases educator effectiveness.
Some ways that Woodstock High School (and Cherokee County Schools) have
implemented technology use to drive student learning are: BYLD (Bring Your Learning Device),
where the students are encouraged to bring a smart phone or tablet to use in class (with teacher
permission), TEACH21, where teachers integrate technology into their classroom in a very real
way and a push towards eBooks instead of using hard cover textbooks for content. Mr. Manzella

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explained that there is a pilot program where the math textbooks would be eBooks instead of
hard textbooks, saying that eBooks are much more easily updated, therefore, he asked for WHS
to be part of the program.
When asked if there has been a push for teachers to work towards a flipped classroom,
Mr. Manzella replied that there have been informal discussions with teachers and administrators,
that flipped classrooms would be engaging for students and they would indeed save money on
the cost of paper and other hard copy classroom supplies, but as of right now,

there are no formal plans to push the flipped classroom at this time, it is the kind of thing that
teachers are welcome to work towards, but there is no formal program.

Needs Identified

Effective professional development is a critical need in schools today. According to Jim

Knight, The unprecedented interest in instructional improvement has also heightened decision
makers interest in effective professional development practices (Knight, 2007, p. 1). WHS is
no exception, there is a committee being started this year, according to Mr. Manzella, and the
sole purpose of this committee will be using data to set professional development goals that will
be the most useful for enhancing student learning. These goals will be set mainly to raising
Milestone (EOCT) scores and supplementing the STEM program at WHS. These groups will

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use data to drive their goals, which is imperative. Professional Learning Standards state that
the use of multiple sources of data offers a balanced and more comprehensive analysis of
student, educator, and system performance than any single type or source of data can
(Learning Forward, 2011, p. 66).

Professional Learning

There are quite a few different types of professional learning offered at Woodstock High.
Subject area groups have PLC planning sessions, some informal such as in science, some
more formal like in Math and Language Arts. These PLC groups can range from a monthly
informal meeting and the sharing of assessments and activities to the school procuring

substitutes for the teachers and allowing them an entire day out of the classroom to plan for the
semester. Another type of professional learning offered is the opportunity to observe peers
classrooms. Each and every Woodstock teacher is required to observe one teacher in their
department and one out of their department and fill out a checklist to be shared with the teacher.
This is to take place every nine weeks. It is beneficial for three reasons, one because it gives
the observing teacher a different classroom to observe and learn from and it gives the teacher
being observed a view of their classroom through a fresh set of eyes. This experience also

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works to foster a relationship of collaboration and communication between teachers and opens
opportunities to offer feedback and for people to learn new things to try.
Leadership groups offer new teachers to WHS the opportunity to work with a mentor, or
someone to help them with any issues they might be having or to give them feedback,
suggestions or just be a shoulder to cry on. Teacher leaders for subject area groups lend their
experience to new teachers and strive to keep everyone on track with the curriculum, analyzing
data and working to keep the students needs constantly monitored. In Professional Learning
Standards, leaders are described as clearly articulate the critical link between increased
student learning and educator professional learning (Learning Forward, 2011, p. 55). Teacher
leaders are an integral part of the professional learning experience at WHS.
Technology professional learning experiences are very rich in Cherokee County Schools.
The county technology department offers many different types of activities, almost every day of
every week, and teachers can choose which activities that they think would have the most
positive impact on their students and their learning. Some examples of courses offered are;
Moodle, SMART board, Quizdom and Mircosoft Office training. I have participated in many of
these classes, and all of them have been helpful and I have been able to integrate many new
and wonderful things into my classroom.
Mr. Manzella described the follow-up after professional learning sessions as That
depends. Sometimes nothing, but sometimes follow-up is integrated into the class or session
(Manzella, Michael, Personal Communication, 2014). As for my personal experiences, when I
was working on my capstone for Teach21 endorsement, the ITC (instructional technology coach)

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did check on me several times to make sure that I was on track. She was very sweet and
helpful and I wouldnt have been able to complete my capstone without her.

Alignment to School Improvement Goals

Mr. Manzella said that the professional learning was most definitely aligned to the school
improvement goals at WHS. It is all aligned through CCRPI goals, which directly affect the
mirror of how effective professional learning is based on student achievement. According to the
Ga Department of Education, CCRPI, or College and Career Readiness Index is a
comprehensive school improvement, accountability, and communication platform for all
educational stakeholders that will promote college and career readiness for all Georgia public
school students (GaDOE, 2014). Goal two of WHS SIP states: Improve the Woodstock High
School CCRPI score to 88, by specifically increasing the Post High School Readiness and
Exceeding the Bar components (WHS School Improvement Plan, 2013, p. 30). This is a
quantitative pool of data that can be used to develop professional learning and help to guide
student achievement.

Incentives and Funding

At Woodstock High, professional learning is mainly funded by Title II funds, with school
based funds being used for some professional learning activities. When the county office adopts

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a professional development activity, Title II funds would be used to pay registration fees and the
cost of substitute teachers for the attendees that are teachers. If the specific schools principal
wants the teachers to attend a specific professional learning activity, then the costs above might
have to come out of school funds if Title II finds are not available.

Incentives for teachers to participate in professional learning vary. Sometimes teachers

might receive more technology to participate in the activity. For example, the Teach21
endorsement was one where if the teachers completed the program they get to keep the
technology that they used to complete their capstone for use in their classroom. This is how I
got my class set of laptops to use in my classes. Also, teachers that are striving to be teacher
leaders, department chairs, or even administrators will find more doors opened to them if they
participate in the right types of professional learning.

Diversity

When I asked Mr. Manzella if there is professional learning being offered to assist
teachers working with students with special needs and those who come from diverse
backgrounds, he replied Yes, but not enough (Manzella, Michael, Personal Communication,
2014). He went on to explain that the push to assess the students has kind of started to
overshadow other valid concerns, and that more emphasis should be put on preparing
professional learning activities that help to support student diversity. This is not to say that

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Cherokee County Schools dont provide professional learning activities that target diverse
groups of students. I hold my gifted certification, which was paid for by the county, and last
school year I attended a professional learning session that targeted ELL (English Language
Learners). The focus was to learn new strategies

that would help these students reach a higher level of achievement. I enjoyed the workshop and
have integrated a couple of the strategies in my class, but there was no follow up.

Collaboration

One way that teachers at WHS collaborate is PLCs (professional learning communities)
that meet in subject and grade level groups to make sure that the same standards are being
followed, the same types of assessments are given and that all teachers are on the same timescale so that they dont run out of time when covering the material. These PLCs also
collaborate by sharing materials so that each teacher can potentially come away from the
meeting with 2-3 new activities to try in their classroom.

There is also a push to integrate

higher Depth of Knowledge questions, so that the students are given practice using higher order
thinking skills. Depth of Knowledge (DOK), according to the Ga Department of Education,
Depth of knowledge (DOK) is a term that refers to the substantive character of the ideas in the
performance standards. DOK classifies the various levels of understanding that students must
demonstrate as they encounter and master the content and skills within the performance

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standards. This schema for evaluating standards has four levels of knowledge: (a) recall, (b)
skill/concept, (c) strategic thinking, and (d) extended thinking (Georgia Performance Standards
Glossary, 2007). These collaborative experiences are aligned to the SIP because the reason for
the development of the PLCs are to increase student achievement and to raise test scores,
which goals are clearly stated on the WHS SIP.

Evaluation

Professional learning at WHS is evaluated in many different ways. Peer observations, as

mentioned before, are a very useful tool to see if professional learning and student learning are
where they need to be. Teachers can compare their practices
to those of their peers and everyone can learn from the experience. Administrators can
determine if the teachers that they observe are guiding student learning appropriately and are
taking advantage of the various professional development activities by doing walkthroughs and
formatives in the teachers classroom. Also, informal conversations between teachers, teachers
and students and teachers and administrators can be very revealing. Professional learning
standards explain feedback from peers, coaches, supervisors, external experts, students, self,

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and others offers information for educators to use as they refine practices (Learning Forward,
2011, p. 81). Last but not least, data, or measurable results can be used to track the
effectiveness of professional learning activities and school goals, PLCs and the like in individual
teachers classrooms. I learned that there are many different ways to evaluate the effectiveness
of professional learning and all available ways should be examined.

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References

Georgia Department of Education (2007). Georgia Performance Standards

Glossary. Atlanta, GA.

Knight, J. (2007). Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving

Instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Woodstock High: School Improvement Plan 2013-2014. (2013). Woodstock, GA:

Cherokee County Schools.

Standards for Professional Learning. (2011). Oxford, OH: Learning Forward.