Professional Development Plan

Another section of the strategic plan is the professional development plan. Used to focus, evaluate, and prioritize professional development activities, Waddell (2009) argues that the professional development plan is a key component in outlining strategies to enhance a school district’s staff while preparing to effectively fulfill current and future roles. Furthermore, professional development empowers teachers with new teaching techniques, sharpened skills and updated knowledge (Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, and Orphanos, 2009). Given the fact that a school district’s ultimate goal is to improve student outcomes, strategic planning that includes a professional development plan is used to improve teachers’ content knowledge and classroom teaching in many ways is associated with improved student learning (Rotermund, DeRoche & Otten, 2017). In addition to improving student learning, a professional development plan contributes to the effectiveness in continuous improvement and sustainability for teacher practices.
Elder (2015) suggests that a professional development plan is most effective in strategic planning when it: recognizes the gap between the ideal and the real, fosters a critical thinking climate, understands the importance of administrative commitment
For example, Backward Design Planning is a new educational trend that allows educators to examine their end goal and how it connects with the larger vision of the strategic plan and organizational operations (Williams, 2016). Once established, it becomes easier to work backwards and create the professional development plan based on the previously established vision. Essentially, educators can strategically match learning opportunities to objectives and create action steps to achieve knowledge on topics (Williams,