Master Plan Section 5: Professional Development

Section 5:  Professional Development

GOAL:  The Davis Joint Unified School District provides professional development opportunities related to gifted education to administrators, teachers, and staff to support and improve educational opportunities for gifted students.  (EC 52212a1)

RATIONALE:  College and university programs preparing general education teachers, administrators, school counselors, and other school personnel seldom include significant learning opportunities about gifted students.  Unless districts provide professional development opportunities, school personnel are unlikely to have the knowledge or skills to develop appropriate educational experiences for gifted learners.  Without such knowledge, research finds that teachers, administrators, and counselors often have a negative attitude toward gifted learners, fail to appropriately modify their curriculum or instruction, and generally ignore the atypical needs of GATE students.  The result is that gifted learners have the highest percentage of underachievement of any group of students.  However, research also shows that when the needs of the gifted students are considered and the educational program is designed to meet these needs, these students make significant gains in achievement and for many GATE students their sense of competence and well being is restored.  It is not only gifted students who gain, however; it has been found that successful gifted programs improve the climate and quality of the educational experience for the school as a whole.

STANDARD 5.1  The professional development opportunities are correlated with defined competencies for teachers of the gifted and the standards for GATE programs.  The focus each year is based on a teacher and program needs assessment and on an analysis of the evaluations turned in at workshops.  Inservice is provided by those who specialize in the area of gifted education.

RATIONALE:  There is a body of knowledge and skill that teachers need in order to be effective with gifted learners.  A needs assessment of the teachers and other school personnel who work with gifted learners will give the direction needed for the planning of professional development opportunities in regard to these issues.  Full staff development opportunities on many of these areas of understanding will create support for the GATE program in the district.  Evaluation of professional development experiences will include an assessment of the understanding of the information learned and the application of the practices with the gifted students.  Presenters must have expertise in the area of gifted education.

ONGOING IMPLEMENTATION

There is a district-wide expectation for differentiation in all classrooms.  Ongoing inservice for teachers with gifted students include:

1. Based on the CCR Title V,  3831j7  DJUSD provides the following inservice options using Buy-Back Days, collaboration time, and/or release time for teachers:
1. A knowledge-based foundation in the theoretical, historical, and research-based constructs central to understanding individual differences and their manifestation in policies that also emphasize key issues and societal and economic factors that impact the development of intellectual talent.
2. Understand how gifted learners are different from other learners in respect to characteristics, developmental trajectories, and idiosyncratic ways of learning.
3. Understand added differences for gifted students that result from cultural background, poverty, and learning problems that sometimes accompany giftedness.
4. Use instructional strategies and instructional planning to emphasize pedagogical approaches that have been found effective with gifted learners, including those from diverse backgrounds; it includes the importance of using appropriate management strategies including assistive technology to respond to the exceptional student learning needs.
5. Provide learning environments for the gifted to include contexts for learning personal, social, and intellectual skills.
6. Provide learning environment to develop oral and written language and communication skills at appropriate levels of advancement, using appropriate technologies.
7. Focus on products necessary to differentiate curriculum appropriately for gifted learnings including learning plans, units, and scope and sequence documents using different domains and students differences.
8. Explicate the knowledge and skills essential for both identification of gifted learners, including the use of multiple measures for finding underrepresented populations, as well as the knowledge and skills needed to assess learning in programs.
9. Focus on the professional and ethical practice in relating to students and other individual stakeholders in gifted education and challenges teachers to strive for continuous improvement through professional development and reflection on practice.
10. Stress collaboration and provide time with colleagues to develop programs for these gifted students and with families, school personnel, and interested community groups.
2. College classes offered in conjunction with University of California at Davis provide teachers with the opportunity to attend classes on the topics of Differentiation in the Regular Classroom, Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted Students, and Identifying and Serving the Diverse Gifted Student.  In addition, DJUSD works with UCD’s Mind Institute and the Office of Extended Learning to provide education about brain research and its implications for the classroom.
3. District-wide articulation about curriculum content, process, and product occurs annually.
4. A resource library of research and materials on teaching, parenting, and being a gifted child is available in the GATE Office.
5. The district encourages teachers, counselors, and administrators to attend annual conferences such as California Association for the Gifted, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, California School Boards Association, etc.
6. The district Professional growth hours for salary schedule advancement and for the required continuing education to meet certain credential requirements are available for GATE-related training.
7. Verify teacher preparation to teach self-contained GATE classes. The teachers of self-contained GATE classes are expected to participate in on-going staff development:
8. Discussing relevant journal articles, evaluating what is working and what isn’t, problem-solving shared concerns, and using a “study team” approach to discuss some issues of concern about gifted students and what may help are topics covered at inservice meetings.
9. Attending conferences or approved classes both about gifted students and their cognitive, social, and emotional development as well as workshops and classes to enhance teacher knowledge of subject content.
10. Share information, support, and materials with regular classroom teachers trying to meet the needs of the gifted students in their classes.

STANDARD 5.2  Teachers have education and/or experience in teaching gifted students or are ensured opportunities to acquire knowledge and experience. Teacher-to-teacher coaching models are encouraged and supported with GATE funds. An experienced and knowledgeable coordinator is in place.  Administrators, counselors, and support staff are provided opportunities for professional development related to their roles and responsibilities.

ONGOING IMPLEMENTATION

1. Teachers who teach in self-contained GATE classrooms must have demonstrated education, experience,  and  commitment to on-going education and training about the cognitive, social, and emotional needs of gifted students.  Only teachers who have demonstrated this commitment are placed and continued in the GATE self-contained classes.
2. Every effort is made to cluster gifted students in the regular classroom with teachers who have been trained or agree to be trained in differentiating the curriculum.
3. The GATE Coordinator maintains expertise by staying current on readings in the field via The Roeper Review, The Gifted Child Quarterly, The Gifted Education Communicator, GCT, and other relevant periodicals and books and by attending classes and conferences related to the field of gifted education.
4. The GATE Coordinator attends child study team meetings, IEPs, and 504 meetings as requested to provide education and experience and link student needs with teacher performance.

NEW IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES

1. Include a GATE support provider as part of the district’s cadre of specialists in the BTSA program.
2. Establish a defendable policy and consistent practice that ensures all gifted and talented students have access to a teacher trained in differentiation.
3. In the appendix, the scope and sequence for professional development is displayed.

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