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The professional development program at Link Community School aims to honor and sustain the culture of a professional learning community where inquiry, exchange of ideas, and deepening of knowledge and practice are supported and celebrated in order to strengthen student and teacher success.
What we have discovered in the process of managing and delivering on-site professional development, is that for it to be really meaningful and enduring, teachers must own it, feel its connectedness to what they do on a daily basis in their classrooms, and feel empowered to affect change because of the leadership that it fosters. Our program ensures that teachers can grow within an environment where they feel supported, guided, respected, and trusted as they develop their skills, make changes that may be challenging and new, collaborate and share their expertise, try new methods of practice, and take risks in designing and implementing innovative curriculum and lessons that stretch their own teaching practice as well as their students' learning.
As educators, our teaching practice and student success can only be strengthened by our ongoing commitment to professional renewal, assessing our own skills and knowledge, engaging in dynamic conversations with our colleagues about our own learning and teaching, and seeking ways to improve and get better at what we do.
Here at Link the teacher portfolio program has been a tool and process that has been effective in fusing aspects of supervision, mentoring, and professional learning by providing teachers with a structured framework within which they collect and select evidence documenting their work and growth in specific areas that relate to their daily responsibilities. Under thoughtful guidance and sensitive management, teachers and administrators are encouraged to engage in a process of rigorous reflection and goal setting that allows them to monitor, share, and celebrate their achievement in areas that matter to them and to their students. Most importantly, the portfolio process allows teachers to consolidate their learning, dialogue about their teaching, and plan intentionally for future growth.
The rationale for the use of portfolios in our program is practical and results-oriented. The benefits of the process are on the one hand very measurable and accessible, and on the other, reach far beyond the actual product of the portfolio binder or the experience of the collecting-selecting-reflecting-projecting cycle. There is a more subtle level of effect that can positively impact faculty, both individually and collectively. Whether it is shaping confidence and self-esteem in new beginning teachers, giving veteran teachers the time and space to deepen their understanding of an aspect of their work that they are passionate about, or whether it is the building of a strong and committed community of learners where exchange is rich, risks are taken, ideas rehearsed, and accomplishments mutually celebrated -- the portfolio, both process and product, has been a catalyst for growing a school-based professional development program that is both enduring and innovative.
Our hope is that because of access to professional development that is relevant, meaningful, and shaped by their own voices and expertise, our faculty will begin to know and feel that their own professional growth is as important and essential as their students' education.
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