Training for facilitators

Facilitators met for three all-day sessions at a central Eastern Shore site to:

• Preview and provide input into the subsequent facilitation sessions planned by the CLE for the school team members
• Receive updates from MSDE and CLE staff on standards-based reform and specific initiatives useful to gather data such as classroom walk-throughs
• Explore and share ways that the new on-line course content might be "rolled out" in their counties
• Develop specific implementation plans to introduce the course content to teams in their counties beginning in September 2002.

Facilitators also attended the team training sessions described in the next section where CLE staff modeled effective professional development strategies that facilitators might use later in their counties.

Training for school-based team members

School team members participated in three full-day professional development sessions in their home counties. Following an introduction to components of the on-line course, the training focused on several key areas of instructional leadership contained in the on-line course that data show to be the most lacking among schools throughout the state:

• Using the standards to drive instruction
• Developing a monitoring plan that is aligned with the standards
• Using teacher-developed assessments for making daily instructional decisions
• Examining and analyzing student work
• Leading a problem clarification process and completing a data-based needs assessment

Sessions for school team members combined face-to-face professional development with the use of the resource-rich on-line course. Participants were given assignments between training sessions that required them to begin the implementation activities in their own schools and classrooms, thus insuring a job-embedded learning process that results in a high degree of adult learning. Written feedback was provided school teams on these assignments based on consistent scoring tools.

Participants evaluated the training at the end of each session, and these formative data were used to plan future meetings. When the results of all questions from all sessions were aggregated, 89% of the participants rated the training as a "5" ("very effective") or "4" (effective) on a scale of "1" to "5," with "5" being the highest. No ratings of "1" (not effective) were given by any participant regarding any session.

Summary of responses to all feedback questions considered from all sessions (9 questions):

In her book Better Instruction Through Assessment, Leslie Wilson notes that what is often lost in the emotion of accountability programs is the belief that data can help schools improve. The key, she suggests, is to have a staff of assessment-literate teachers, who can monitor their students' progress and use instructional strategies to insure continual growth and improvement for each student. As a result of the services provided by the CLE, school-based team members from participating schools became more assessment literate and increased their capacity to practice data-driven decision-making on a daily basis.

It should be noted that this pilot was conducted at a time of significant change and uncertainty about the state assessment program. As the training proceeded, announcements were made by MSDE that a new Maryland Assessment System to be aligned with the federal No Child Left Behind regulations would replace MSPAP.