Level Four: Participants’ Use of New Knowledge and Skill

The key to gathering relevant information at the “Participants’ Use of New Knowledge and Skills Level” rests in specifying clear indicators of both the degree and the quality of implementation (p. 47). Using this as a guide, in the study through testing, we do not see clear cut evidence that the Bridgeton Public School District is evaluating teacher implementation of skills learned.

When Bridgeton Public School District wrote their professional development plan, they reflected back on their previous plans and participants use of new knowledge and skills from professional development.  They found that, “Results from the 2009, 2010 and 2011 administration of NJ ASK for grades 3-8 and NJ HSPA for grade 11 indicate that the staff development was effective at some grade levels and in some sub groups. However, the results continue to indicate a need to incorporate additional training for teachers of special education and LEP students” (Bridgeton Public Schools, pg 7).  They do not explain what they mean by effective or how they determined who was implementing the new knowledge from the training.

Guskey mentions that one way to check for implementation is classroom observation (pg. 49).   In the Bridgeton Public School District after learning about Marzano’s Classroom Instruction That Works, walkthroughs were conducted.  There were more learning objectives posted and teachers were providing students with more constructive feedback (BPS, pg 9).  However, they noted that there was still room to improve in some areas.  They give no quantitative information or really no qualitative information.  Just a description of a general change they noticed.

There were many other professional development examples provided including math content training, literacy initiatives, instruction on behavior systems, recognizing at risk students, motivating urban students, and quality assessment training.  Many were job embedded and several were even coaching situations.  However, it does not describe the level of implementation or quality of implementation that occurred as a result of these professional development opportunities. It is intimated that teachers have increased their collaboration and modules have had a positive impact (p. 10). This data is not qualified so it is unclear how the impact of the training was determined. Many teachers have exceeded the 20 hours of training mandated by the district (p. 12).

Later in the plan, it is stated that “Evidence that will indicate staff has learned new skills will be monitored through:

                  ¿  Classroom visits

                  ¿  Formal/Informal Observations by Administrator

                  ¿  Peer to Peer Observations and Feedback

                  ¿  Power Walkthroughs

                  ¿  Assessment Data

                  ¿  Workshop evaluation forms”

 (BPS, pg 34).  The plan also explains that evaluation as to the success of the plan will be evident in: student observation and performance, teacher lesson plans, classroom observations, workshop evaluation forms, curriculum revisions, collaborative meetings, surveys and relevant student data from ancillary sources, such as IXL and Study Island (BPS, pg 35). Although they include classroom observations in their plan and they do have a SMART goal that includes the use of student data to determine the effectiveness of professional development, they do not have a clear cut way of determining the level of implementation of new knowledge and skills once an educator has experiences training.

Overall, using the state achievement test, student achievement increased by 10% in various groups and subgroups. This increase implies that teachers were implementing what they learned from the PD’s attended.  This also implies that the implementation was performed to a certain degree to improve student performance. The plan, however, does not actually include any evidence of the percentage of implementation or the quality of implementation.