What role does professional development play in the curriculum review process?
Teachers, like all professionals, constantly learn and improve their craft. Opportunities for collegial discussions are vital in that improvement process. According to Peter Negroni, vice president of the College Board, noted that “teachers most improved their knowledge and classroom practice through professional development that was sustained, intensive, focused on academic, integrated into their daily life in school and involved participants actively” as found in a study of math and science teachers and quoted in American Educational Research Journal, Winter 2001). A curricular discussion around a particular area is one of the perpetual topics during our professional development time. For example, 4th grade language arts teachers may look at student writing samples and see how students are performing in comparison to benchmarks of where they should be writing. Depending on what is observed, teachers then derive strategies to improve their instruction. Such work is powerful at improvi
