Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers

132 Pages·2003·0.75 MB·English

by  Diane Sweeney

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Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers by Diane Sweeney.
Copyright © 2005. Stenhouse Publishers. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission from publisher.
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Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers by Diane Sweeney.
Copyright © 2005. Stenhouse Publishers. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission from publisher.
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Professional Development Way
by and for Teachers
Diane Sweeney
Literacy Specialist, Public Education & Business Coalition, Denver, Colorado
Stenhouse Publishers
Portland, Maine
Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers by Diane Sweeney.
Copyright © 2005. Stenhouse Publishers. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission from publisher.
Stenhouse Publishers
www.stenhouse.com
Copyright © 2003 by Diane Sweeney
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the pub-
lisher.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders and students for permis-
sion to reproduce borrowed material. We regret any oversights that may have
occurred and will be pleased to rectify them in subsequent reprints of the work.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sweeney, Diane.
Learning along the way / Diane Sweeney.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 1-57110-343-0 (alk. paper) ISBN 1-57110-449-6 (e-Book)
1. Early childhood education—United States. 2. Early childhood teachers—
United States. I. Title.
LB1139.25 .J35 2003
372.21—dc21 2002036572
Cover and interior photographs by the author
Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free paper
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers by Diane Sweeney.
Copyright © 2005. Stenhouse Publishers. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission from publisher.
This book is dedicated to my friends
and colleagues at the Public
Education & Business Coalition, an
organization that never ceases to offer
opportunities and challenges for
learners of all ages.
Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers by Diane Sweeney.
Copyright © 2005. Stenhouse Publishers. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission from publisher.
This page intentionally left blank
Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers by Diane Sweeney.
Copyright © 2005. Stenhouse Publishers. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission from publisher.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1.
Principles of Professional Development 1
Part One: Modeling and Observation 17
2.
Study Groups 19
3.
Understanding Through Observation 27
4.
Coaching Toward Implementation 39
Part Two: Guided Practice 51
5.
Processing New Information to Make It Your Own 53
6.
Staying Grounded in Student Work 61
Part Three: Independence 75
7.
Principal Leadership 77
8.
Teacher Leadership: Switching Roles 87
9.
Finding the Courage to Get There 97
A Final Note 102
Appendixes 103
Bibliography 113
Index 117
vii
Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers by Diane Sweeney.
Copyright © 2005. Stenhouse Publishers. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission from publisher.
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Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers by Diane Sweeney.
Copyright © 2005. Stenhouse Publishers. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission from publisher.
Acknowledgments
I’ve never considered myself a lucky person. I haven’t won a cent in Las Vegas
and always get the busy signal during radio station giveaways. But when it
comes to my experience as a teacher, I have been very lucky. I was lucky when
I chose to teach at Harrington in Denver, Colorado. I was lucky when I became
involved with the Public Education & Business Coalition (PEBC). And through
all of that, I was lucky to have many mentors along the way. It was those men-
tors who helped me become a better teacher and staff developer, and it is those
mentors whom I would like to thank for helping me write this book.
I’ve thought hard about whether I should be the one to tell this story. After
all, I am one small part of a larger community. There are the staff developers
from the PEBC such as Ellin Keene, Stephanie Harvey, Liz Stedem, Anne
Goudvis, Lori Conrad, Marjory Ulm, Kristin Venable, and Chryse Hutchins,
who developed this body of work over the past twenty years. How could I possi-
bly share a professional development model that they created? There are the
teachers who taught me how adults learn. Can I possibly speak for them?
After much consideration, I decided that this was a story that had to be told
and that maybe I was the one to tell it. After all, I experienced the work first-
hand, as a classroom teacher and instructional coach. I was the lucky one on the
receiving end.
I’d like to thank Mariah Dickson, former director of PEBC Staff
Development. Mariah painstakingly edited each word in this book and helped
me figure out how to tell this story. Although I doubted my ability to actually
write a book, Mariah never did.
My editors Philippa Stratton and Brenda Powers at Stenhouse Publishers
trusted me and provided the feedback I needed to make it what it is today.
Barbara Volpe, the executive director of the PEBC, generously provided me
with uninterrupted writing time and encouraged me every step of the way.
Rosann Ward, associate director at the PEBC, enthusiastically read my
drafts and helped me polish them before publication. She told me that she would
ix
treat me like any other writer, which I appreciate more than she’ll ever know.
Learning Along the Way: Professional Development by and for Teachers by Diane Sweeney.
Copyright © 2005. Stenhouse Publishers. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission from publisher.