PD Policy Historical Document

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AALPD Recommended Policies to Support Professional Development for Adult Education Practitioners - An Historical Document

Goal:

The adoption of policies at the national, state and local level that adequately support the participation of adult basic education, adult ESOL, and adult secondary education practitioners (including learner leaders who are staff members) in professional development which will help them be effective teachers, tutors, counselors, and administrators.

…we all need sustained support to learn and to continuously improve our practice. (Susan, NIFL-AALPD 2015)

Policies:

1) Expectations for Participation in Professional Development: Every state and program should set and publicize the expectation that all teachers, no matter how experienced, must have a relevant professional development plan and are expected to continue learning throughout their careers. Programs should include in teachers’ job descriptions that they will plan for and participate in professional development as a part of their work.

[Programs should] say upfront, [to new teachers] "Welcome, here's your job spec, welcome to the program, you'll notice that part of your work includes planning for and participating in professional development." (Janet Isserlis NIFL-AALPD:2034)

Programs should also include in administrators’ job descriptions that theySupport Staff and Program Development.

Teacher observation and peer feedback, mentoring and the like are things that I'm guessing many of us have thought of, but perhaps haven't undertaken as fully as we'd like for a number of reasons. Without support from program directors…there is little hope for teachers to have the time to plan and effectively use a strategy like observation. (Janet Isserlis NIFL-AALPD:2034)


2) Paid Professional Development Release Time: All teachers should have a minimum of 2.5% of their annual working time as paid professional development (e.g., a full-time teacher, working 40 hours a week at 40 weeks a year—summers and holidays off—would work 1600 hours a year, so 2.5% would equal 40 hours of paid professional development a year -- equivalent to 5 paid days).


3) Tuition reimbursement: Programs should be funded to provide tuition reimbursement at the equivalent of one college course per semester to teachers who have higher education attainment as a part of their professional development plans.


4) Participation in Program Improvement: A minimum of 2% of each program's budget should be set aside for teachers to participate in program improvement [such as designing a new curriculum (not just lesson planning), recruiting, designing a new student orientation, etc.], that starts with improving program structures and services for students. Programs should use a sound planning process to systematically set and evaluate program improvement goals, one whichteachers are involved in. As part of program improvement plans, programs should describe the role, resources and major activities of professional development which will enable teachers to acquire the needed knowledge and skills for meeting both program goals and practitioners’ individual skill needs and special interests.

Some cautions -- This doesn't mean that all staff development has to be linked directly to program improvement goals. There should be room for staff development that enhances an individual practitioner's skills or helps them develop a special interest. It can be connected to the program through collegial sharing or under the general umbrella of improving instructional quality. (Marcia Drew Hohn NIFL-AALPD:2042)
Many program directors do not have planning experience and skills to lead the process. Likewise, staff are not used to being involved in setting organizational goals and in teamwork. And, of course, time and financial resources for program planning are usually limited. (Marcia Drew Hohn NIFL-AALPD:2042)


5) Professional Development Plans: Each program should be funded at 1% of its annual staff hours to conduct a process for teachers to develop an annual professional development plan that dovetails with the program’s improvement process (which starts with students’ needs for improvements in instruction and services). All teachers should be required to have PD plans, and programs should be monitored to see that these are real and meaningful to teachers and to the program.


6) Teacher Evaluation: Programs should conduct a teacher performance evaluation that asks teachers to show evidence that they have acquired new skills and knowledge described in the goals of their professional development plans.


7) Professional Development System: Each state should have a funded state literacy resource center or other agency that provides direct professional development to practitioners and technical assistance to help programs organize in-house professional development. Professional development staff should provide support to programs with both program structures and services??. A designated person in the program should be identified as coordinator of program and professional development.

a) Professional Development Staff as Liaisons: Teachers should have professional development staff with whom they can speak candidly and confidentially. These staff should gather and communicate professional development needs of the field to the state. These staff should be given the flexibility to design professional development which is a balance of individual teachers’ needs, program needs, and state goals.
…the role of professional development staff varies according to the diverse needs. Depending on the size of an agency, an important goal might be to build the capacity within a program so that staff members and teachers can provide professional development for one another. When building capacity within an agency is the goal, professional development staff play a critically different role compared to when we are supporting practitioners directly. (Susan, NIFL-AALPD 2015)
Sometimes, our work is structural - working as facilitators to help programs talk things out, in terms of curriculum, program design, structure/policies (e.g. open entry/exit as opposed to fixed registrations) - to pose the questions that folks in programs might have thought about but are too deeply entrenched in the details to be able to see them as clearly as someone who understands the issues more broadly might be able to do. (Janet Isserlis NIFL-AALPD:2034)


8) Relevance of Professional Development Activities: Every state literacy resource center or professional development system/agency and every program must use the professional development plans of the practitioners in their state or program to plan professional development activities relevant to teachers’ and (ultimately) students’ needs.

Having PD agencies use the professional development plans of practitioners certainly sounds good and makes a lot of sense, but it can be very difficult to do in real time. PD organizations must often plan their work and their activities far in advance and it may be hard to base a PD organization's workplan for a given year on the professional development plans that practitioners may be developing at more or less the same time. To make this work, we'd need to look at the time frame for the development of practitioner professional development plans and at the time frame under which PD organizations are being expected to develop their workplans and figure out how it might be possible for the one to inform the other. (Steve Reuys NIFL-AALPD:2037)


9) Orientation for New Teachers: All new teachers should have an orientation to teaching in the field of adult basic education within the first 6 months of their teaching. Orientations should include an introduction to adult learning and a brief history/overview of the funding, structure, institutions and history of the field, as well as an introduction to curriculum and lesson planning.

Providing an Orientation for New Staff makes sense and we've been doing it in Massachusetts for many years now. One of the things we've learned, though, is that we can only do so much in what is for us a 15-hour orientation. Realistically, it can only serve as a "survey course," a very broad, but not at all deep, overview of many aspects of the field. Ours includes an introduction to adult learning and to the field, and does touch on curriculum, assessment, lesson planning, and many other topics, but it can't deal with any of these topics in depth, and can't serve as basic training in teaching reading, writing, math, ESOL, etc. We encourage participants to see the Orientation as a first step in their staff development, as a stepping stone from which they will go on to do other forms of more in-depth staff development in these areas. (Steve Reuys NIFL-AALPD:2037)


10) Access: Every practitioner should have access to professional development, throughout the year, both inside and outside of his/her program, and every practitioner should have access to a variety of types of professional development (conferences, workshops, study circles, courses, teacher research and other forms of more sustained PD, etc.) on a variety of content, organized at a variety of times and locations, including on-line options.

We believe, and research tends to confirm, that more substantive, more intensive, more long-term forms of PD are more likely to be effective and to result in real change in practice. However, not only do these types of activities require greater resources to conduct well, but it is also very often much more difficult for staff and programs to commit to participating in them, given the multitude of demands and expectations placed upon them, and we continue to hear that what practitioners prefer are single-session workshops and other types of short-term activities. It's very important that we think about and try to find creative solutions to this conflict. (Steve Reuys NIFL-AALPD:2037)
I fully support access to varied kinds of PD (#9). For all the bad press that single-session workshops get, I think they serve a particular function in terms of inspiring practitioners to try new techniques that can lead to greater changes. I remember, for example, getting excited about using photographs in my teaching and then that leading to a variety of projects, better integration of skills, etc. (Andy Nash NIFL-AALPD:2046)


11) Quality of Professional Development: Facilitators of professional development should have completed preparation. This might include, for example, a course or other type of training about the research-based principles of effective professional development design and facilitation. It might include their being observed conducting training and getting feedback about their design and facilitation skills. They should have a professional development plan that dovetails with their resource center’s continuous improvement goals, which includes opportunities for focused inquiry in an area of improvement. Professional development staff working on both the state and national levels should spend time exploring core PD issues in adult basic education and literacy with practitioners, and should be funded to spend a minimum of 2% of their time each year in the ABE/ESOL classroom, teaching.

As a white, middle class, educated person, I find that I must continually examine my own assumptions; and I want to effectively support practitioners in doing the same. For me, this is one of the central issues in my work as a professional development specialist and teacher educator. While issues of race, class, culture, and gender are central to all education, these issues are even more present in adult literacy. I feel a keen need to find ways to explore these issues safely with the practitioners I work with day to day. (Susan, NIFL-AALPD 2015)
I don't know that it is realistic to say that all presenters/facilitators of PD should complete a preparation course and be observed. It would be nice if this could happen, but I just don't think it's always possible or that it necessarily always makes sense. How important it is I think it very much depends on who the presenter is, what the nature of the activity is, what the timing of the activity is, and various other factors. (Steve Reuys NIFL-AALPD:2037)


12) Teachers’ Working Conditions: In addition to paid professional development release time, programs should have sufficient resources to provide working conditions that will allow teachers to stay in the field, find the work satisfying, and grow professionally, including::

  • benefits for all teachers (including part-time),
  • paid prep time for all teachers (including part-time),
  • access for all teachers to at least one hour a week of sharing time with either colleagues or a coordinator who supports their teaching, and
  • at least monthly mechanisms (staff meetings, meetings with director) for voicing their input/decision making within the program.


13) Teachers’ Involvement in the Field of Adult Education: All practitioners should be able to use at least 1% of their annual working time to participate in activities as a member of the field, including:

  • providing professional development to other teachers inside or outside of the program,
  • working towards addressing students’ needs (transportation, child care, health services, job assistance, etc.) that may prevent students from participating in the program, and
  • building community partnerships (with the health care system, K-12 system, libraries, local businesses, career centers, etc.) to improve services to adult learners.


14) Teacher-Driven Professional Development: 50% of the state-supported and program-support professional activities should be the result of needs assessments in which teachers have participated, and/or be directly related to teachers’ and programs’ needs as they define them. The other 50% could be driven by the needs of the state ABE regulating agency/ies.


15) Teacher Pay: ABE teachers should be paid the equivalent salary earned by K-12 full and part time professionals in the ABE teacher’s city or county of employment. Pay should be more than what the city/county pays a substitute teacher.


16) Continuing Education/Carnegie Units (CEUs): States should provide to teachers CEUs for hours of professional development in which they have participated through the state literacy resource center or other direct provider of professional development and technical assistance. Teachers should earn pay increases or incentive bonuses proportionate to the number of CEUs they earn towards the objectives defined in their professional development plans.


17) Adult Learner Voice in Professional Development: The adult learner voice should be included in developing professional development policies at the local program, state, and federal levels.


18) Professional Development for Learner Leaders Who Work in the Field: Students who are tutors, administrators, program coordinators, and counselors, should be afforded access to professional development offered by state professional development and technical assistance agencies or granted internships to work and learn within the program.

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