Develop your professional growth plan

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Requirements

Professional growth plans can take many forms. They can be textual or graphical. They can include mind maps or digital elements. Whatever the format, the plan must demonstrate a relationship to the Teaching Quality Standard or the Leadership Quality Standard in Alberta and should include the following essential components:

• Name
• Dates
• Goal(s) including reference to TQS or LQS
• Strategies to achieve goal(s)
• Resources to be used    
• Timelines
• Descriptors of indicators or measures of success
• Outcome at year-end: Reflections and implications

Developing learning goals

Professional growth is a result of identifying goals to improve your professional practice and taking action toward achieving those goals.

Example: Once you have completed the self-assessment, a general goal or Teaching Quality Standard focus area you might select could be to focus on “inquiry-based learning.” As you develop your own learning goal, a more specific one would be “to integrate inquiry learning into my Grade 7 mathematics pedagogy using targeted teaching and learning strategies.”

Meaningful goals

• have substance and meaning for the teacher;
• stretch current thinking and practice;
• can be achieved and, therefore, don’t lead to frustration; and
• have deadlines that help to ensure that the goal is attained.

A common technique for writing goals is to make them SMART.

S—specific, significant, stretching
M—measurable, meaningful, motivational
A—agreed on, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented
R—realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented
T—time-based, timely, tangible

Possible strategies and resources

Once you have identified your goal(s), think about the strategies, timelines and resources you will employ to achieve them. 

• Make sure your goal is realistic and achievable within the time and resources available in a given year. 
• Outline the strategies and timelines you will use to accomplish your goal. For some goals, it may be better to break the goal into manageable pieces that can be part of a multiyear growth plan.

You, the learner, are in control of your learning. Since you chose your goal(s) based on self-identified needs, you also should choose the strategies and resources to achieve them. Not all strategies require you to attend a conference, workshop or other formal PD event. There are many possible forms of learning that can be considered when developing strategies to meet your needs.

Some strategies are directed by the individual teacher whereas others may involve colleagues or a learning community within or outside of your school. Other strategies involve attendance at workshops or conferences. Search out which resources might be best to help you achieve your goal and include them in your plan.

Once you have identified the strategies, you can identify the resources that you will need. Sometimes funding will be required, for example, attending a workshop or conference, whereas at other times, no budget or funds are needed, for example, a mentor teacher or coach on staff. Some possible resources available to provide support to teachers are identified in the following tool.

Meaningful measures and success indicators

An effective professional growth plan involves preidentifying indicators of success and measures or data that relate to achieving the professional development goals. Indicators of success define what the end result or successful completion of the growth plan will be acceptable to you and will look like in practice. Indicators provide answers to such questions as “What do I anticipate will be different in my professional practice as a result of accomplishing this goal? What will my students be doing differently? How do I anticipate student learning will change or improve as a result of achieving this professional goal?”

Meaningful measures identify the tools or types of evidence one will use to indicate evidence of successful goal achievement in preparation for the year-end review with your administrator. As teachers, evidence may take several forms including classroom data, observations you have made, student feedback and your own expert judgment as a professional.