Summary of Faculty Attitudes Towards

Spring 2007

The NCA steering committee gathered information about the relative success of and recommendations for improvement of staff development efforts during the Spring 2007 school improvement day. They gathered quantitative evidence using the Likert-scaled self-assessment instrument provided by the National Staff Development Council’s Standards for Staff Development and qualitative evidence using a technique known as the Word Café in which teachers moved randomly among different tables discussing and writing their responses to topic prompts about collaboration, use of essential vocabulary and background knowledge, and the advisory program.

Forty-two surveys were completed and the results were tabulated and graphed. (See Attachment A: National Staff Development Council’s Standards for Staff Development Self-Assessment). The NCA steering committee reviewed the findings the following May. Below is a summary of the major issues that were addressed, as well as recommendations for future staff development activities.

Learning Communities/Collaboration/Resources

The faculty overwhelmingly agreed that learning teams focus on the school improvement goals (currently reading across the content areas), especially during school improvement meetings. However, although small teams were the primary component for staff development, they were not given time to meet, plan, and evaluate work. Responses were mixed as to whether or not they received training in how to participate in groups and how to surface and manage conflict. Several circled the response unknown. This disparity of opinions may be the result of the extent to which faculty have or have not participated in standing committees and the degree to which these committees have taken the time to develop ground rules prior to engaging in their assigned tasks.

Qualitative discussion groups suggested that teachers greatly value time to collaborate for a large variety of reasons including finding time to work with special education teachers, vertical and horizontal alignment, sharing pedagogical techniques, mentoring new teachers, and integrating curriculum (for example American Literature and American History). Currently they see time limitations due to location of classes, after school extra-curricular responsibilities, conflicting prep periods, and the overwhelming amount of time required for grading and curricular preparation due to the number of students they teach daily.

When asked for suggestions as to how to find time/funding for collaboration, faculty again offered a variety of suggestions, probably due to the varied time commitments that are typical of a comprehensive high school faculty. These included time before the school year begins, payment for giving up prep time for staff development, starting the school day later or ending earlier on a regular basis, and dividing responsibility for advisory on reading days. Faculty expressed a preference for the aforementioned strategies over the use of substitute teachers due to the subsequent loss of contact time with students and the time consuming nature of developing sub- plans. Some faculty pointed out that collaboration time should be structured into the high school day as it is in the middle school.

The majority of the faculty did not believe that staff development occurred primarily during the school day, or that it comprised 25% of their workday. They were unsure as to the percent of the building budget that was allocated toward staff development. The faculty responses were mixed (14 agreed, 12 disagreed, and 16 were neutral or did not know) in response to the statement collective bargaining agreements, calendars, daily schedules and incentive systems support staff development.

Leadership Capacity/Research Based

Approximately 75% of teachers and administrators agreed that teacher teams and administrators study the research prior to adopting improvement strategies. In addition, almost 80% believed that the teacher leaders develop the knowledge and skills necessary to be staff development leaders. This level of trust in terms of content and pedagogy suggests that the faculty approves of the staff development strategies that the steering committee has used so far. However, the faculty response was mixed as to whether they are taught how to find and use educational research on their own (12 agreed, 9 disagreed, 17 were neutral and 5 did not know). This is not surprising. All staff development efforts this year have included a description of the research behind the new techniques and then focused on their implementation. Teachers who believed they learned how to use the research may have learned elsewhere or indirectly. For example, two years ago, a small team of teachers met regularly to discuss the findings in Marzano’s book, What Works in Schools, sharing what they read and the strategies that they used to implement these findings in their classrooms.

The majority of respondents said they did not know or were neutral as to whether pilot teams used action research to test the effectiveness of new approaches when research is contradictory or does not exist. Fourteen agreed that they did. The responses to this question are probably muddled because many teachers are not aware of what action research is and because the question itself is lengthy and double-barreled (one may agree with one part but not another). Pilot groups have been used in the past to test new technology and the sustained silent reading program. Two science and math teams were grant funded to engage in action research to integrate technology into their curriculum. Other examples, no doubt exist. However, the steering committee has not actively recruited pilot teams for this years’ goals.

Data Driven

The faculty agreed thirty to one that staff development is focused on student learning. Seventeen teachers agreed that subgroups were disaggregated, seven disagreed, and seventeen were neutral or did not know. This confusion of responses is not surprising. It has been at least one year since the entire faculty has been shown comparison data with like schools disaggregated by gender or IEP. Disaggregated data by other subgroups such as quartile, IEP status, socio-economic status or highest class within a discipline taken have been limited to one or two departments that by their nature are more comfortable with data. The steering committee has however been responsive to such data in the development of its intervention strategies.

The majority of faculty state that they gather evidence of student learning to determine the effectiveness of staff development on their students. This evidence, although it may be valid, has not been coordinated, shared, or anchored.

Learning Methods and Cycle/Knowledge Pedagogy, and Assessment

The majority of teachers agreed that staff development mirrored expected classroom practice, but there was again a clear mix of responses when asked if it included practice and feedback. This is a double-barreled question: While there is time for practice (any teacher may practice these techniques in the privacy of their own classrooms) no time has been provided for feedback, i.e. collaboration. Thus there were many negative and neutral responses. The faculty did not feel that staff developers asked for or responded to their concerns about interventions with follow-up strategies. Ironically, while there had been many informal investigations prior to this survey, formal feedback was not requested until immediately after this survey was administered, at which time the faculty discussed their progress, expressed concerns, and made recommendations concerning the advisory program and the use of essential vocabulary to provide background knowledge. One can only speculate that the response to this question might have been different if the sequence of events were reversed.

The faculty was equally divided as to whether they had the opportunity to develop deep content knowledge. This has not been a school improvement goal, and so responses to this question would be idiosyncratic and dependent upon individual time constraints, level of commitment, course assignments, and department practices.

The faculty tended to agree that professional development activities related to their discipline. Even more agreed that they were learning formative assessment skills. Assessment of student background knowledge was in fact a focus of the essential vocabulary strategies.

Community/Equity

The faculty overwhelmingly agreed that they were trained to develop a learning environment with high expectations for all students. However, about half did not feel that they were being trained in how to differentiate instruction. Their reaction was mixed as to whether they were learning methodologies that conveyed respect for diverse students. Faculty very clearly felt that they had been trained in the use of technology for communication with parents.

Attachment A: National Staff Development Council’s Standards for Staff Development Self-Assessment