Professional development leading to better students’ achievement

The aim of this work is to analyze the work done by Howley & Howley (2005), and draw some personal conclusions. It is believed that professional development is closely linked to students’ achievement, thought little evidence about this relation exists. It has also been assumed that teachers deliver classes mastering the subject matter they are aim at teaching. This assumption is not always true, opening a gap between teachers performance and students outcome. Teachers who train and improve their professional development, either by peer coaching, critical friend`s group, working on the work, preservice course work, etc; will improve classroom instruction helping students develop higher achievements. Policymakers and educators have a major role in the construction of professional development. The former by guiding and deciding on standards and benchmarks, the latter by actively participating in the daily development.
Throughout the text these discourse markers can be found:
- “This work was sponsored wholly…” Howley A., Howley B. C, (2005). The deictic expression THIS works as a discourse proximal marker.
- “Policymakers and educators see professional development as a way to improve quality of instruction in the classroom across a nation, but the empirical literature linking professional development...” Howley A., Howley B. C, (2005). The connective conjunction BUT works as a contrasting discourse marker.
- “Logically, though, it would seem that the right kinds of professional development would improve instruction …” .Howley, A., Howley, B. C., (2005). This referring expression has an anaphoric reference based on what the speaker assumes the listener or reader already knows.
- “Furthermore, an accumulation body research…” Howley A., Howley B. C, (2005). This connector is used to add relevant information and works as a discourse marker.
- “Because so little education research exists, we turn to recent organizational…”. Howley & Howley (2005, p. 1). The discourse marker WE functions as a personal deixis, exclusive “we”, not taking into account the reader as part of the group. Because functions as a subordinating conjunction to join an independent and a dependent clause.
After analysing the paragraph, it can be concluded that management approaches help teachers develop better professional skills. The Total Quality Management approach helps teachers in the awareness of quality processes, not only by planning, organizing and directing their teaching, but also by creating a reflexive thinking about their outcome. In business contexts the outcome is strongly related with the product; in educational contexts the outcome is connected to classes and/or students. The Baldrige National Quality Program aims at aligning the strategies based on actions. Teachers have a main role creating the benchmarks and criterias in order to assess and change teaching processes and outcomes.

Reference
Howley, A, & Howley C. B. (2005). High-Quality Teaching: Providing for Rural Teacher’s Professional Development. The Rural Educator. Retrieved October 2007, from http://findarticle.com/p/articles/mi_qa4126/is_200501/ai_n13591361