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Thoughts on Time and Teaching
The Center for American Progress too has weighed in on the intertwined issues of transforming schools and expanding learning time. Their recent white paper reminds us that there are no silver bullets in education reform, and that it is best to consider how different change initiatives work in tandem. "For more learning time to deliver meaningful results," the authors of the white paper observe, "other key elements and conditions like strong principal leadership, effective teachers, and a culture of excellence must be in place in schools. The success of more time depends on how well it is added and spent."
Gates Foundation Perspectives on Empowering Effective Teachers?
According to the first of a new series of briefs from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, four strategies are all vital to improving the recruitment, placement, evaluation, retention, and support of highly effective teachers:
Breakthrough Ideas for Knowledge Workers in 2010
According to The Harvard Business Review, what motivates "knowledge workers" most is not recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, or clear goals. Rather, it is a sense of progress. These and other "breakthrough" ideas for 2010 grew out of a multiyear study that followed knowledge workers in an array of settings, gathering data on their activities, emotions, and motivation levels. "On days when workers have the sense they're making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles," the authors wrote, "their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak." Conversely, their moods and motivation are lowest on days characterized by obstacles. Based on the findings, the authors advise those in charge to: "Scrupulously avoid impeding progress by changing goals autocratically, being indecisive, or holding up resources.
What Do Teachers, Principals, and Students Think?
In the fall of 2009, MetLife asked 1,003 K-12 public school teachers, 500 K-12 public school principals and 1,018 public school students in grades 3-12 to share their views on their respective roles and responsibilities, current practice, and priorities for the future. The effort marked a continuation of MetLife’s Annual Survey of the American Teacher, which it has been conducting since 1984. The first report on the survey findings, Effective Teaching and Leadership, compares teachers’, principals’, and students’ perspectives on responsibility and accountability and explores the nature and extent of collaboration in schools today.
Among the key survey findings:
Teacher-Centered Professional Development
It’s no surprise: professional development as it has been provided in many schools and school districts does not work. In his highly useful and insightful book, Diaz-Maggioli starts here and asks the logical follow-up question, “So what does?”
The answer? Teacher-Centered Professional Development.
For Diaz-Maggioli, professional development “should be understood as a job-embedded commitment that teachers make in order to further the purposes of the profession while addressing their own particular needs. It should follow principles that guide the learning practices of experienced adults, in teaching communities that foster cooperation and shared expertise.”
