The second year of the KYAE professional development (PD) model is underway. Thank you to all programs for working through the new registration system. Continuous improvement and evaluation is key to building a successful professional development model. KYAE has listened to feedback from various participants and program directors and has brought about the following improvements to the model.
1) Requirements for part-time instructors and instructor’s aides. KYAE realizes that the time needed to complete discussion board activities in the online courses is more than one hour a week. Requiring instructors to complete two online courses is very challenging.
a. Instructors and instructor’s aides are currently registered for two online courses and may elect to withdraw from one or take the second one as an elective. For fiscal year 2010-11, KYAE will only require completion of one online course and its accompanying project*.
Instructors and instructor’s aides hired on or after January 1, 2010, must complete Orientation to Adult Education and Assessment to Instruction, along with the accompanying project. New instructors and instructor’s aides do not need to complete the Effective Instructional Strategies online course*.
*NOTE: KYAE will only accept withdraws from a course from the program director. Directors must provide one list per county of the instructors, instructor’s aides, the course(s) and course code staff are withdrawing from to Toni Quire at Toni.Quire@ky.gov by August 15, 2010.
b. Instructors or instructor’s aides instructing less than 50 hours do not have a PD requirement.
c. As space permits, part-time staff may complete a full-time staff institute in lieu of the part-time PD requirement.
2) Time commitments for completing PD requirements. KYAE reduced face-to-face sessions to five days in all institutes except the 1st Year Instructor Institute (six days), the Number Sense Content Institute (six days) and the Geometry Content Institute by KET which is completely online and has no face-to-face sessions. Critical research and articles that could be addressed before or in between the face-to-face sessions were moved online to accommodate busy schedules.
3) PD calendar. KYAE set the 2010-11 PD calendar in January 2010 to allow programs time to adjust their class schedules for this current fiscal year. However, setting a calendar before all registrations were completed presented another challenge. Four institutes have been cancelled due to low registration. KYAE will work to avoid this scenario next year.
4) Content area instruction. To address the need for PD in content areas, in particular algebra and geometry, KYAE now offers two content institutes, Number Sense Content and the Geometry Content Institutes.
5) Pedagogy options for experienced staff. KYAE is developing online courses in lesson planning and effective instructional strategies. Once completed and as space permits, these online courses will be available as an elective for experienced staff. Instructional leaders may want to encourage staff needing a refresher in lesson planning or strategies to take advantage of these courses. They are electives and do not replace the required PD for the year.
6) Access to PD histories. PD activities and histories beginning with data from July 1, 2009, are now available in AERIN. Click here to view a video on how to generate these reports.
7) Requirements for program directors. This year, program directors are not required to accompany one instructor to a complete instructor institute.
a. Program directors not taking a targeted institute will participate in two PD Webinars and accompany at least one instructor to their final face-to-face session or showcase. Program directors are welcome to attend more than one instructor showcase.
b. KYAE is working with Morehead State and Western Kentucky Universities to develop an institute for program directors that will have a blended format (online and face-to-face), a job-embedded project and technical assistance while working on the project. The project will focus on instructional leadership. All directors are required to attend.
In the Works for the Future:
1) Laying the groundwork. KYAE’s PD model is setting the stage to better prepare teachers to use tools and skills for writing and implementing lessons. At the same time, Gayle Box and Meryl Becker-Prezocki along with providers from Daviess, Hopkins and McCracken Counties are participating in a national professional development initiative to learn the skills necessary to work with standards. KYAE intends to use the tools and knowledge gained from the Standards-in-Action project to create a strategy for Kentucky adult educators to move towards standards-based instruction.
2) Need for English as a Second Language (ESL) PD. All but a handful of ESL instructors and instructor’s aides are part-time staff. KYAE is working to design PD that both accommodates the schedules of part-time ESL staff and provides them with an opportunity to network.
To the right in the Related Content area are the 2010-11 PD Policy and PD Allocations. If you have questions about 2010-11 professional development, please contact Joyce Bullock at Joyce.Bullock@ky.gov or at (502) 573-5114, ext. 118.