Effective Teacher Professional Development Crucial to Common Core, Article Review Example

According to David Nagel, implementation of the Common Core cannot be successful without ensure that professional development programs are in place that will support teacher’s in promoting the education of their students. Ultimately, the Common Core requires teachers to make use of new teaching methods, so there will be a need to develop new training programs for individuals who wish to become educators at the college and university level in addition to developing continuing education programs for educators that already have experience teaching the old curriculum.

While the author agrees that new professional development programs would be needed to help teachers implement the Common Core, there may be budgetary constraints that prevent the efficacy of these programs. He states that for the training programs to be successful, professional development must be ongoing and occur over time, delivered in the context of a teacher’s subject expertise, and use effective coaches and mentors (Nagel, 2013). A major implication of the author’s position regarding staff development is that these programs are currently ineffective. It would therefore be necessary to revamp these programs for teachers in the same manner that the curriculum is being altered for the students.

In my experience, the professional development sessions that I have attended have generally been a waste of time. There are large discrepancies in subject area focus, leading to a stress on mathematics and English due to the importance of test scores. For the teachers that are not involved in these academic subjects, there is little ability to grow as an educator. Furthermore, much of the information provided during these sessions are redundant, making many teachers believe that the time spent at a professional development session would have been better used as instructional time. I agree with the author because there is a definite need to recreate these programs in a manner that will make them more effective. In particular, they should focus on providing teachers with the training necessary to understand and implement Common Core principles in the classroom, regardless of subject are expertise.

References

Nagel D. (2013). Report: Effective Teacher Professional Development Crucial to Common Core. The Journal. Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/09/10/report-effective-teacher-professional-development-crucial-to-common-core.aspx