Success at the Core Leadership Module

Ready to jump into this module's content? We suggest that you:

1. Watch the module's videos, keeping in mind the Reflection Questions.

2. Look at the handouts and facilitator guide and think about how you could engage in this module's learning experience with schoolwide, content, and/or grade level teams at your school.
 

Success at the Core

is a professional development toolkit for teachers and leadership teams, designed collaboratively by Education Development Center (EDC), which designs, implements, and evaluates programs to improve education, health, and economic opportunity worldwide, and Vulcan Productions, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen’s award-winning film company. Original materials were funded by Vulcan Productions, Inc. and are used with permission.

Leadership Development Module

Professional Development

When teachers have the tools and knowledge they need to improve, schools flourish, leaders meet their missions, teachers become more effective, and students thrive. Leadership teams can make this happen. They can "connect the dots"—school priorities, teacher challenges, and student needs—to drive the professional learning that works best in their schools. This module's resources will guide your leadership team to: develop a common understanding of the key features of quality professional development; examine the goals of quality professional development and the strategies needed to achieve them; and create a professional learning action plan.

Reflection Questions:
As you prepare to explore this module's resources, consider:
• How would teachers at our school complete this statement: "Quality, school-based professional development involves ..."?
• What goals have professional development offerings at our school tried to achieve? What goals have they overlooked?
• How have our leadership teams (including schoolwide, content, and grade-level teams) utilized professional development to meet students’ learning needs?

Video Resources

1. Data Driven Professional Development
Mount Baker Middle School's schoolwide leadership team collaborates with administrators and teachers to develop relevant, ongoing professional development that seeks to improve instruction. In this video, you'll see how the team: analyzes student-learning data; works with staff to identify specific student-learning needs; and develops a professional development plan to address these needs.

2. Supporting Individual Professional Development
This video illustrates how professional development has helped members of the seventh grade mathematics team at Wilson Middle School use a new curriculum. Specifically, you’ll see the professional learning support offered to a new teacher on the team.

3. Addressing Teacher Needs with Professional Development
See how the schoolwide leadership team at Sylvester Middle School works with the entire school staff to identify student-learning needs, and how content area teams then make instructional changes to address these needs.

Dig Deeper
  • Module Handouts
    Handouts designed for teams working through the module together. They include reflection sheets, readings, and group exercises.
  • Facilitator Guide
    This guide allows an in-house facilitator to lead a team through the module’s learning experience.