This fall, our school district adopted a new model for how professional development affects teacher salary. The new model provides various opportunities for educators to participate in professional development activates aligned to their personal career path. These activities may result in immediate compensation or “points” that can accumulate and move teachers across the traditional salary schedule.
Coming from the business world, the idea that employees would have a career path that they discuss periodically with their supervisor makes a lot of sense. I’m pleased that everyone will at least have this conversation as it is both a great opportunity to set goals as well as to identify opportunities for collaboration with teachers with similar goals.
I’m even more excited about the flexibility of the new model. The “bricks” that result in compensation or points can be coursework like in traditional salary models. However, they can also be earned by leading initiatives, participating in committees, creating and facilities professional development courses, developing curriculum, conducting research, and other professional learning experiences.
Historically, I’ve been pretty frustrated with how my professional development has been recognized and rewarded by my district. My time, like everyone’s, is limited and valuable. I choose to participate in those activities that will have the greatest affect on my professional development and my students’ learning. I carefully choose the conferences and workshops that I attend, the committees and professional development activities in which I participate, and the graduate courses in which I enroll. Only once in my seven years as a teacher has my assessment of professional development value and my district’s aligned. I received graduate credit for the Modeling Instruction workshop that I completed five years ago. The most frustrating was when I was denied credit when I was a Teacher Research Associate at Fermilab National Laboratory over one verb in the corresponding graduate course description. That summer, I worked on the [Holometer collaboration](http://holometer.fnal.gov) and wrote a [series of articles](https://pedagoguepadawan.net/holometer/) that explained the experiment at a level high schoolers and general public could understand. It was an incredible experience. I hope, with this new model, no teacher will ever experience the frustration that I did when pursuing such a rich professional development experience and not having that recognized by the district.
Now I’m about to test the flexibility of the new model.
I just finished writing a brick proposal for the “Discovery, sharing, execution, and enhancement of research-based and field-tested best practices for physics education.” I’ve come to realize that the most valuable professional development that I experience is with my online and Chicagoland colleagues. That’s why I invest my time in my weekly physics PLC Google Hangout, monthly Physics West meetings, my blog and 180 posts, and reading all of your posts and tweets. I tried to convey the significance of these experiences in my application:
This brick would be an example of blended learning. It would involve my participation with my online colleagues through a weekly Professional Learning Community (PLC) physics meeting comprised of physics educators throughout the country (and world) that I most respect and through less formal interactions via Twitter and blogs. For example, check my blog [Pedagoue Padawan](https://pedagoguepadawan.net) and my 180 blog: [Pedagogue Padawan 180](http://180.pedagoguepadawan.net). It would also encompass in-person activities with the Chicagoland Physics West group, which meets monthly at area educational institutions. Interactions with each group are shared with the other as well as with my colleagues at Naperville North. To provide some context, every significant change (e.g., [standards-based grading](https://pedagoguepadawan.net/category/standards-based-grading/), [Modeling Instruction](https://pedagoguepadawan.net/category/modeling/), [peer instruction](https://pedagoguepadawan.net/?s=peer+instruction), [computational modeling](https://pedagoguepadawan.net/?s=computational+modeling)) that has dramatically affected student learning and my professional practice has been profoundly impacted by the interactions captured in this brick; significantly more so than any other professional development experience I’ve done in my seven years of teaching.
I’ll keep you all posted on how this goes and thank you in advance of your continued support of my professional development.
Happy New Year!
