Developing a plan for professional development requires that decision makers ask themselves questions like the ones that follow:
- What professional development is needed? How do we develop a variety of offerings that can, over time, reach all of our constituents with support that meets their needs? How will we evaluate the effectiveness of our professional development?
- Who will lead it? How will we identify, develop, and support the people who provide the professional development? What roles make sense given our particular circumstances (e.g. math specialist, math coach, teacher leader)?
- How will we use the curriculum? Given that Investigations is designed to be a tool "that provides opportunities for learning about mathematics content, how students learn, and effective pedagogy" (Implementing Investigations at Grade X, p. 2.), how will we incorporate it in our professional development?
- What resources are available? How can we think creatively about ways to make the budget and the schedule of the school day and year support our work and goals?
- How will we communicate? How will everyone in the educational community learn about our plan, goals, and expectations?
Answers to the above questions will vary from place to place depending on local circumstances such as the total number of teachers in a school or district; the number of years of teaching experience those teachers have; teachers' familiarity with Standards-based materials and philosophies; and the availability of resources such as time, space, money, and staff. However, any plan for professional development needs to be:
- Ongoing. A kick-off event or one-time workshop is not enough; professional development needs to support teachers over time, through events like workshops, but also in other day-to-day ways.
- Comprehensive. Classroom teachers need support designed with their particular needs in mind, but so too do administrators, math coaches/teacher leaders, special educators, support staff like paraprofessionals and afterschool teachers, and families.
- Multi-faceted. Because different groups have different needs, and those needs change over time, offerings should be varied.
- Strategic. Particularly in the beginning stages, the targeted use of outside expertise can play an important role, but a plan should have an explicit focus on building capacity from within.
- Supported. Such support takes time and money; resources need to be allocated in ways that support the plan.
- Realistic. Change is hard, and it takes time and support; people need to know what is expected of them and why, and how they will be supported in this work.