Running head: ANALYZE A PD PROJECT 1

Analyze a Professional Development Project

Rozanne Todd

North Carolina State University

Running head: ANALYZE A PD PROJECT 2

A school’s culture emanates from its core values and beliefs to produce either arid or

fertile soil for learning that then predetermines achievement within its acres. The cultural

proficiency elements of Apex High’s culture were the focus of a recent professional development

(PD) session on March 8, 2019 and reflected the Organizational Development function outlined

in Distributed Leadership in Practice. Spillane and Diamond (2007) advised that “developing

and maintaining a school culture in which norms of trust, collaboration, and collective

responsibility for student learning support ongoing conversations about instruction and

improvement” is vital for optimal student achievement (p. 3). Such a culture is essential to foster

equitable achievement for all subgroups who bring their unique mores to a school. As the

instructional staff of Apex High School (AHS) is currently 85% white, an unobstructed

addressing of cultural elements is warranted through an authentic desire to “Seek first to

understand, then to be understood.” as Stephen R. Covey (2004) suggests in his fifth habit (p.

249). AHS administration selected deepening staff’s understanding of the beautiful cultural

aspects of our students as a basis for the PD objectives in the four part early release series in the

current school year.

Administrators employed data on subgroup performance, qualitative feedback from

students, and district direction in making this decision, but regretfully did not include teacher

agency in the creation of the annual PD plan. In Bayar’s (2014) elements of a PD program,

teacher involvement in this stage of planning is important to enhance buy-in for greater

acceptance of content. If a culture of reflection is truly embedded in a school, instructional staff

should be the preeminent experts about the pedagogical needs to be addressed in PD sessions. In

Leverage Leadership, Bambrick-Santoyo (2012) highlights that “Great professional development

starts with knowledge about what teachers need” (p. 131). Although data from walkthroughs and

formal observations are reliable data points, these external assessments of staff skills should
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ideally only support the teachers’ own assessment of needs if instructional excellence is

calibrated across a building. This is not a current strength of AHS, nor is staff involvement in

decisions on PD. Responses from a previously assigned K-W-L chart generated staff ponderings

that reflected needs, but the questions were not directly addressed with practical strategies during

the session’s activities.

The content of any PD session should be evaluated through the lens of being job-

embedded and with an instructional-focus (Hunzicker, 2010). A collective understanding of the

changing demographics of AHS was developed in earlier PD sessions to establish the relevancy

of addressing cultural proficiency to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population.

Previous PD sessions also illustrated the marked achievement gap in subgroup data through

graphs highlighting the unfortunate disparities. No reminder of these experiences that established

a job-embedded nature and instructional-focus were referenced or reviewed to remind

participants of the necessity of the very theoretical framework of cultural proficiency that was to

follow. The numerous slides of academic content were primarily illustrated with references such

as restorative practices or an international fair that most staff possessed little understanding of,

leaving the quality information isolated from future practice. A few illustrations were recent and

relatable, and those were referenced by staff in hallway discussions, but without clear

connections to improving the cultural proficiency of pedagogy. The theoretical framework was

also presented without context to “establish the credibility of the information source,” and staff

were left untrusting of the source as a result (Longenecker & Abernathy, 2013, p. 31). Informal

staff discussion later in the day revealed a general lack of acceptance of the framework as a

result of the authors being unexplained, coupled with an overall disillusionment with research-

based practices among the AHS staff. This building-wide “hubris and ego” (Longenecker &

Abernathy, 2013, p. 31) left the content of this PD internalized by few and dismissed by many as
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being not relatable to the realities of teaching. Without a clear connection established by the

presenter between the framework and the daily processes of our teaching job, staff were left

unmoved by the presentation that usurped their valuable early release hours. An overall dearth of

instructional focus also left staff stagnant in growth toward cultural proficiency in their teaching

practice. Additionally, the lecture format of the presentation did not address the adult learner

need for “engagement and doing” (Longenecker & Abernathy, 2013, p. 32), preventing the

objectives from being mastered. Activities that could have provided active learning opportunities

include staff analyzing examples of sterile lesson plans to augment with culturally proficient

instruction or a small group generating of class norms to support a climate of acceptance of

different cultures. Staff performing role plays in pairs to practice culturally proficient dialogue

would have also been a vehicle to bring about greater change than simply attuning to a

presentation in a large group setting.

Following the Google slides presentation in the auditorium, staff were dismissed to meet

with their departments to complete a Google form that included questions to self-assess the

culture of AHS and the step in the theoretical framework that AHS currently operates within.

Additional questions directing departments to brainstorm applications concluded the lengthy

questionnaire that served as an accountability piece for teacher engagement. The collaborative

nature of this accountability activity accurately met the element of Hunzicker’s (2010) checklist

of effective PD elements, but only in a very limited manner. A Flipgrid reaction was also

assigned as a Plus/Delta activity and for administration to take attendance, but a review of the

videos revealed a playful attitude toward this important cultural element and a general lack of

comfort with that technology platform. Little substantive collaboration actually occurred in this

small group segment as evidenced by staff from several departments leaving campus within 20

minutes of dismissal from the auditorium. A staff perception of the lack of actual importance of
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cultural proficiency developed after this PD as no follow-up has occurred in the form of

coaching or feedback, as included in Longenecker & Abernathy’s (2013) list of key imperatives

for effective adult learning. No discussions with departments nor individuals have augmented the

ongoing nature of culture enhancement, and the topic is generally dismissed from most staff’s

conscious focus as a result. For staff to truly develop a “shared dream of an upbeat future” (Deal

& Peterson, 2016, p. 229) for all students at AHS, a unified commitment to cultural proficiency

must be sustained long after a common PD experience has concluded.

The very general nature of the PD artifact failed to personalize the topic through honest

self-reflection. Staff were not asked to perform this important task through the view presented in

Leadership and Self-Deception of “Don’t look for others’ boxes. Do look for your own.” (The

Arbinger Institute, 2010, p. 174). As a result of this lack of self-analysis, little observable

improvement has occurred in the school culture for the benefit of students, especially those from

underrepresented subgroups. Additionally, administration could have identified staff who act as

exemplars of culturally responsive pedagogy to use as illustrations of authentic job-embedded

practices, endowing credibility to the very academic nature of this presentation. As Doug Lemov

(2012) writes in his Rule 9 of Practice Perfect, “The skills you see in your top performers are the

very skills you then work to develop in everyone on your team” (p. 58). Such skills are ripe for

the creation of a checklist to then use for pedagogical development and to employ for gathering

quantitative data during walkthroughs. If the skills of the strongest AHS staff were replicated

thoroughly, cultural proficiency would become an innate element of the school culture for

benefit of all, eliminating the Stereotype Threat that leads to members of negatively regarded

AHS subgroups to underperform (Steele, 2010). Providing nutrient-rich, fertile soil that meets

the needs of each learner at AHS is the duty and privilege of all adults granted the gift of tending

to the growth of students. Exceptional PD that follows the several research-based models
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currently available is a powerful means for administrators to bring this to fruition in their

buildings.
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References

Bambrick-Santoyo, P. (2012). Professional Development. In Leverage Leadership (p. 131). San

Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Bayar, A. (2014). The Components of Effective Professional Development in terms of Teachers’

Perspective. Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 6(2), 324.

Covey, S. R. (2004). Habit 5: Seek First to Understand. In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People (pp. 249, 252). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Deal, T. E., & Peterson, K. D. (2016). Firming Up Culture. In Shaping School Culture (p. 229).
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons

Hunzicker, J. (2011). Effective professional development for teachers: a checklist. Professional

Development for Education, 37(2), 177–179.

Lemov, D. (2012). How to Practice. In Practice Perfect (p. 58). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Longenecker, C., & Abernathy, R. (2013). The eight imperatives of effective adult learning.
Human Resource Management International Digest, 21(7), 30–31

Spillane, J. P., & Diamond, J. B. (2007). Taking a Distributive Perspective. In Distributed

Leadership in Practice (p. 3). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Steele, C. M. (2010). Stereotype Threat Comes to Light, and in More than One Group. In
Whistling Vivaldi (p. 46). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

The Arbinger Institute. (2010). Another Chance. In Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out
of the Box (p. 174,175). Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.