Teaching teachers to teach: Professional Development Center aims higher

Across the region, school-district strategic plans identify professional development as a key area of growth.

For Southeast Regional Professional Development Center officials, that’s great news.

The center is one of nine regional centers established by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, or DESE. It is going into its 22nd year of serving the region, director Rita Fisher said.

The center has 18 consultants and two support staff, she said. Funding comes from an annual grant by DESE; support from Southeast Missouri State University, where the center is; and through the center’s own income, Fisher said.

“We do a lot of professional development” predominantly at the center, but programs also are offered at individual schools, Fisher said.

Professional development has changed since the center was established, Fisher said.

“It’s no longer about, ‘Who we can bring in for a day, and that’s a great start to the school year, and that’s all we need,’” Fisher said.

“A lot of PD is led by teacher leaders,” Fisher said. “We bring in teams of teachers and their principals from the buildings; they take it back and implement.”

Fisher said the focus has shifted from teachers planning lessons by themselves, going into their classrooms and shutting the door for the day.

It now is a more collaborative environment, with professional development built into the school day, as well as larger-scale workshops and conferences. Teachers are encouraged to build learning teams and encourage positive behavior support.

The center aims to teach teachers and administrators to foster student learning by giving academic and behavioral strategies.

The center serves 16 counties in Southeast Missouri in an area that stretches from the Mississippi River to West Plains, the Missouri Bootheel and Ste. Genevieve, Fisher said.

Assistant director Cynthia Matthew said more than 70 districts are involved in the center’s training and support.

Positive behavior support, or PBS, is led by Deborah Lintner, who said 54 buildings are implementing such a program schoolwide.

PBS focuses more on rewarding students’ positive behavior than punishing infractions, Lintner said.

Lintner said Cape Girardeau and Jackson school districts are involved with PBS at various levels.

“They’re focused on creating proactive, preventative environments where kids can engage in learning,” Lintner said.

Everything the center does is research-based, Lintner added.

“It’s another reason why PD has changed,” Lintner said. “Early on, it was just good ideas that seemed to work in classrooms. Today, we have so much research behind it. We don’t have time to just make it up. We have to go with what works.”

Another major area of the center’s focus is data analysis.

“We’ve collected a lot of data for years, but using and applying it to increase learning has been difficult,” Lintner said. “We’re teaching schools to look at the data and make decisions to use it to improve children’s learning.”

The data Lintner refers to is generated from not just test scores, but every interaction between teacher and student, she said.

“You can drown in the data,” Lintner said. “We want to make data analysis simple enough to share with teachers.”

In the past, Lintner said, teachers weren’t as likely to see data at a building level.

Now, it’s a tool teachers can use to solve problems in areas that need attention.

Fisher said the data shows everything has an effect on learning.

“Teachers want to do what’s best, so every time they are using an instructional practice that has a higher impact on student learning, we want to be doing those — not a practice with a lower or negative impact,” Fisher said.

Matthew said practices once common in classrooms were homework given for the wrong reasons, especially early, and retention — or holding back a student a grade.

Fisher said the center staff sees itself as providing support.

“Districts need technical support, coaching, so within that building, teachers and administrators can develop their capacity to grow and learn together,” Fisher said.

“We place a lot of emphasis on collaboration and collaborative teams,” Fisher said. “Society is set up so that we work and collaborate together. We want to be able to share those good ideas.”

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

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