9A.+Professional+Growth+Plan

=__ **Professional Growth Plan** __**:**=
 * In order to be successful in the profession of education all teachers need to take the time to develop new skills and understandings. It is imperative they take the time to either research the most updated information or be taught to use the most recent technology. With this knowledge, a teacher will not only enhance their curriculum, but they will offer the student ways to learn that were previously thought to be impossible. Furthermore, this information allows the teacher to offer new and exciting information rather than the same old materials that have long become obsolete. It is very clear in our society that students learn in many ways and through different evaluations. Technology is just another step in the right direction and one that must be addressed by all educators. No longer can we ask our students to listen to us talk while they rapidly write down all of the notes. We must take the time to introduce technology and use it to enhance our studies for both the educator and students. Consider all of the technology used in our society today. Look at the enjoyment it brings to most people and you will realize our schools need technology in order to move into the next phase of education. Educators need to continue to develop and teach the necessary skills to succeed through technology. If this does occur, we will not only learn more, but we will see our own personal growth and development.

It is important we take the time to do a proper evaluation of the technology we are introducing. After a long discussion, we felt there would be no single way of evaluating the wikispace or its success in terms of the entire group. We believe each individual teacher will need to determine the necessary changes needed in order to use the site to meet their needs. The committee could meet quarterly to discuss the issues and offer advice to the staff for possible changes, but the teacher would make the final decision. As time passes we would like the use of wikispaces to begin within the entire school. It is our belief that all teachers should use this technology to enhance the teaching and offer a much easier solution to the student and parent. We have not figured out the exact path for the implementation of the wiki space. Our goal is to allow the English department two full years of use before we integrate the entire school. We feel this offers a fair amount of time to learn the system and see the changes we may need to make. After the time has passed we plan to do everything we did with the English department from step one. The only difference is this would include the entire school. One other way the group felt we could determine the success of the initiative was to evaluate the student population involved with the project. Clearly the achievements can be looked at as a way of determining the impact of our initiative. If the English scores continue to rise above the scores of other subjects that are not using the technology we would have real evidence of our success. The student improvement would be our way of showing that a teacher who is using the technology in their teaching is doing a more effective job of reaching the student population. **