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By Joanne M. Haas
The state’s new teacher licensing law provides the framework to rejuvenate teachers, administrators and pupil service professionals and get them more excited and passionate about their careers.
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Kathy Larson |
That is a key finding from two statewide pilot projects involving Wisconsin’s new teacher licensing law, known as PI 34, according to project coordinator Kathy Larson.
Among other changes, PI 34 requires teachers, administrators and pupil service professionals coming into the system after August 31 of this year to complete professional development plans (PDPs) to renew five-year Professional Educator licenses. Already-practicing educators may renew through the traditional method of completing six college credits.
One PI 34 pilot project participant indicated she was surprised by the benefits of choosing the PDP option.
“When I started, I thought that extra credits were a great way to renew my license, but this PDP, if implemented correctly, will breathe new life into teaching and may invigorate teachers as it does administrators and pupil service professionals,” she wrote.
Larson, a veteran teacher coordinating the pilot projects, said she was nothing short of thrilled with how the participants were energized by the PDP pilots. They helped participants view their own professional growth in a different way by using the framework of what PI 34 offers.
“In some ways, this pilot project has rejuvenated the participants to the (idea of) motivation,” Larson said, adding it also helped the participants view the professional growth plans as a positive experience rather than a burden mandated by yet another law.
She said the concept of the PDP is to motivate teachers to continue to learn and work at their growth for three to five years, with the ultimate goal of having a positive impact on kids.
“It is not based upon a weakness – it is based upon a desire and a passion,” she said.
The two statewide test projects led by Larson gathered teachers, administrators and pupil service professionals who agreed to participate in the PDP pilots to see how the law’s language and process work in a real setting.
The first statewide PI 34 licensing pilot project, held in 2003, involved 166 teachers and focused on the law’s 10 teaching standards, which are PI 34’s foundation. The profession recognizes the need to be performance-based, while the 10 standards define the expectations of performance by describing the knowledge, skills and dispositions required to be an excellent teacher.
The Department of Public Instruction describes the 10 standards as a “framework of best practices in teaching and learning.” The standards, created with the help of the 19-member Wisconsin Professional Standards Council, which includes 10 teachers, also represent the first time the state has defined what makes a good teacher.
PI 34 is based on the concept that teachers should use the 10 standards to craft individualized PDPs to earn or to renew the three levels of licensing. In addition to Professional Educator, the levels are the non-renewable Initial Educator for new college graduates and the 10-year renewable Master Educator. Teachers with lifetime licenses are not affected by the change. Administrators and pupil service professionals are subject to the same basic licensing framework as teachers.
Larson – a professional growth and development consultant with Cooperative Educational Service Agency 2 in southern Wisconsin – said prior to the development of the 10 educator standards, teaching practices were based on an individual teacher’s preferences, not on any notion of a shared vision within the educational community.
The second pilot project led by Larson involved 75 administrators and pupil service professionals. This pilot, which ended in May, focused more on what makes someone get excited and passionate about their career versus the language of the law.
In the pilots, all participants crafted professional development plans such as those that would be approved for an Initial Educator license. Participants were instructed to focus on a desire to be the best they could be rather than just meeting a law’s requirements.
“Compliance growth is different from motivational growth,” Larson said, adding that motivational growth is by far the better of the two and also the one teachers strive to instill in students. Participants also realized growth is organic, not rigid and linear.
The administrators and pupil service participants, Larson said, were excited to realize they could support each other’s goals.
“The other people I worked with this morning were excited about my vision and plans,” a participant wrote. “I got even more excited about my PDP at that time.”
Another participant planned to take the experience
home to colleagues:
“I will better be able to assist staff members understand and
use the PDP process by having gone through this training,” the
participant wrote. “I need to find additional ways to help my
staff embrace the self-reflective process. I would like to explore ways
to help them work reflection into their everyday teaching.”
Posted June 2, 2004