A Professional Growth Plan for Katelyn O’Brien

Jacqueline Hawkins

EDSU 643
 Teaching this school year has been far from predictable. The pedagogical changes

necessary to tailor virtual and hybrid instruction to student needs has been challenging,

overwhelming, and, at times, has fallen short of expectations. Katelyn O’Brien expressed

all of these frustrations as we met to start the design of her professional growth plan.

When we started to create the plan, I asked Katelyn if there were any areas of her

instruction on which she would like to focus her energy. She expressed that she needed to

focus on virtual learning as she feels that her work and effort is not effective in producing

the desired student outcomes.

Katelyn is a veteran teacher in her twelfth year, her ninth at Northern Middle

School. She holds National Board Certification and is awaiting her updated teaching

certificate that displays her recently acquired Administrator I credentials. Katelyn has

always recognized the importance of personal professional growth. It is evident in her

career and certification milestones. The rationale of this professional growth plan is to

directly impact instruction and enhance student learning. The professional growth plan

can help a teacher find a focus when there are many things happening in the classroom.

Katelyn and I worked together to focus her professional growth plan around the struggles

she identified in teaching in the virtual and hybrid learning models.

Katelyn expressed needs center on Danielson’s first domain: planning and

preparation. The amount of content Katelyn thought she could teach in contrast to what

she was able to teach did not meet her expectations. She is also frustrated by students’

lack of motivation to complete classwork and assessments. The data on which Katelyn

were student grades, attendance records, her observations of her students and classes, and

her plan books for this year and last year. The students’ grades show a significant
population of students who are failing because they do not complete work. She observed

that several students who were in attendance did not complete work that should have

been completed during class time. Katelyn observed that many students have attendance

that is not consistent. Katelyn noted that she has slowed the pace to give students time to

catch up and stay current on work. This extra work time for students paired with less

class time in her teaching schedule has ruined her planned pacing for the course. This

leaves her with the realization that she will not be able to teach nearly as much as she

originally planned. Further conversation evolved into two objectives for our plan.

1) Given the county scope and sequence for eighth grade science as well as the

guaranteed curriculum for the course, Katelyn will collaborate with her

colleagues at Southern Middle School to determine the most important areas

on which to focus instruction for the remainder of the school year, assessing

progress and adjusting curriculum each grading term.

2) As curriculum changes, Kaitlyn will adjust assessments to be focused on the

identified curriculum areas. She will explore different modes of assessment to

increase student engagement in the assessment process. Additionally, she will

collaborate with her colleagues and her supervisor to adjust the requirements

of a science fair project for the students so that projects are directly related to

the curriculum.

Katelyn’s first goal is a “deepening” goal (Danielson & McGreal, 2000, p.113).

The goal focuses primarily on Danielson’s first domain, component c, “selecting

instructional goals” (Danielson & McGreal, 2000, p. 23). The rationale of this goal is for

Katelyn to optimize content topics to allow her to teach them with deeper student
learning. The resources she will need in pursuit of this goal are the county’s scope and

sequence for eighth grade science, the guaranteed curriculum for eighth grade science,

and collegial support in her counterparts from Southern Middle School. The cost to

Katelyn, the school, or the county for these resources is in-kind as there is no additional

out-of-pocket expense. As Garrett County Public Schools current hybrid model schedules

teachers’ afternoon time, Katelyn will use her science department time in the afternoons

intentionally for this purpose. She will meet with the team from Southern Middle School

to collaborate and build the curriculum for the next term and beyond. The artifacts

produced by the work will be student learning objectives for the agreed upon reductions

in content that express what students will know and be able to do as a result of the

changes implemented (Danielson & McGreal, 2000). She will implement these changes

in the next grading term and continue in this process for the remainder of the school year.

These changes will immediately affect student instruction. As Katelyn plans units and

daily lessons for her students it will be necessary to review the learning objectives she

created with her colleagues, implementing the changes on a daily basis.

Katelyn’s second goal is an “assessing” goal (Danielson & McGreal, 2000, p.

113). The primary focus of this goal is Danielson’s first domain, component f, “assessing

student learning” (Danielson & McGreal, 2000, p. 23). Working toward this goal,

Katelyn will “focus on developing new or alternative assessments to measure or describe

student learning” (Danielson & McGreal, 2000, p. 113). Katelyn wants to engage

students in assessment, increasing motivation to complete work. The resources she will

need as she works in this goal include collegial support, advanced Schoology trainings,

trainings in peripheral programs that sync with Schoology, and possibly paid
memberships to sites that assist in creating and managing alternative assessments. The

costs of most of the resources is again in-kind, but paid memberships to assessment sites

will vary as she researches to find what she needs. The artifacts produced from working

toward this goal will be samples of assessments and student work. She will start to add in

the alternative assessments in the next grading term. She will incorporate the assessments

in her daily planning as she prepares students to meet the demands of the assessment.

Katelyn will need support in meeting her goals. Currently, she is busy adapting

instruction to virtual teaching. Stress and lack of time could make her put off her plans. I

will support her by checking in with her at the end of each term to monitor her plan and

encourage her to stay in contact with her colleagues at Southern Middle School. I will

also share with her some of the assessment tools I use in class as I have been able to

attend advanced Schoology trainings and other trainings where I have learned about

additional online instruction and assessment tools. We will use time during team planning

and professional learning community meetings for this purpose. In using time granted to

the teams to discuss instruction and assessment, Katelyn will receive support from me as

well as the other teachers on our team. Katelyn can also receive support from Garrett

County’s STEM Supervisor. He can clarify expectations and help structure the meetings

with the county science teachers and offer other resources to help her.

As the year continues, Katelyn plans to self-assess her progress, work with

colleagues and adjust plans as needed. To evaluate the success her deepening goal,

Katelyn will reflect on what she was able to teach during the school year and how this

information will help her in future school years. She will also be able to share this data

with her colleagues, so as a district, they can make needed changed to the county’s
guaranteed curriculum. To evaluate the assessing goal, Katelyn will collect student work

samples to analyze the various student assessments. She will reflect on their success in

demonstrating what students have learned. She will also reflect on various types of

assessments she used to support the curriculum, deciding if specific assessments were

more or less successful in engaging students in assessment.

Katelyn will begin this plan at the start of the second marking period. This plan

will continue through the end of the school year as virtual learning has changed so much

of the way we teach. When I initially interviewed Katelyn at the beginning of the

semester, she thought she should be able to keep a lot of what she does, but just adapt it

to an online version. One term into the year, the reality of this experience has caused her

to rethink her plans and make adjustments to benefit student learning.

References:

Danielson, C., & McGreal, T. (2000). Teacher evaluation to enhance professional

practice. ASCD.