Professional Development Plan

M8 U9 Activity 2: Professional Development Plan

Project Description

Overview Many districts and schools require teachers to create annual professional development plans to guide their professional learning. In this activity, you will have the opportunity to create a personal professional development plan based on your experiences in your first 8 weeks of clinical practice as well as the data that you collected over the 12 weeks. The scavenger hunt in Activity 1 is designed to help you get started in thinking about the areas and ways you would like to continue learning beyond the TEACH-NOW program. In this activity, you will create a more formal and organized plan for your professional development. Professional development is also a state requirement and licensing authorities ask teachers to provide evidence of professional development in order to renew their teaching license. You can also explore the PD opportunities or add-on a Master’s degree (for an additional 16 weeks of coursework) offered by Moreland University. If these look feasible to you, you can add them to your professional development plan in this activity.

Performance outcomes

• Candidates will create a personal professional development plan to guide their future growth in the field of education

What will you do?

1. Discuss your personal and professional learning goals with your cohort in the Virtual Classroom and Discussion Forum.

2. Think about what you want to be able to do better. In which elements of the clinical rubric did you receive the lowest scores over the past 8 weeks? What have you always wanted to try? Think about how you will know if you have been successful. How will you review and measure your improvement?

3. Download or make a copy of the Professional Development Plan (PDP) template.

4. To help you get started and give you some inspiration, check out “Unlocking Student Effort,” a set of five essays from prize-winning teachers.

5. Fill out the PDP template:

   • List down your objectives based on the broad goals discussed with your cohort.

   • To make sure your objectives are not too vague, write down the success criteria or data tracking tools that will help you determine if you have met your goals and objectives.

   • Identify the methods and resources that you will use to achieve your learning objectives. You may want to tap into your PLN.

   • Add resources, such as the free monthly pd from Teach Now and social media sources that you can utilize to build your professional learning network and continue learning.

   • Set a tentative timeline by when you will achieve these goals.

Report requirements

• Completed Professional Development Plan template

(The above information was cited from the TEACH-NOW Teacher Preparation Certificate Program)

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