Research shows effective professional development occurs when teachers are involved by identifying their own goals which incorporate issues interesting and important to them. An individual professional development plan based on teacher inquiry is a powerful means to accomplish this.


Inquiry is simply asking a question, looking for data, and using the data reflectively to come up with answers. The trick is to help teachers identify a question worth asking, identify and evaluate a variety of data, and reflect meaningfully upon them.

The FOCUS for inquiry is determined by the question. A way to assure that the question is worth asking is to focus the question on a change in a teaching strategy related to a powerful learning goal. To be a powerful learning goal, the goal should be based on research based best practice. Improving student achievement should be determined by using state or nationally identified discipline specific standards and information from a current research base.

A good generic example of an inquiry question is: "What do I want to know about how to improve my students' performance, how will I know it, and how will I document that knowledge?"

Once the question is formulated the PLAN for inquiry can be fashioned. The plan needs to state the question, identify the data needed to answer the question, construct a means to collect and document the data collected, list additional resources / training / equipment needed and how to get them, and a timeline showing when these will occur throughout the school year.

Data should include observations of student behaviors and documentation of student performance. Baseline data documenting student performance before and after the change in teaching strategy should be included.

After the data are collected, they need to be evaluated and reflected upon. Do more data need to be gathered? Does more research need to be looked at? If there is sufficient data, what does it all mean? If student acheivement remained the same or declined what accounts for that? Can something be tweeked to improve student achievement or is the conclusion that the change is ineffective? Are the data the correct data, or could different data change the outcome? This evaluation and reflection generates the answer to the question.

The DESIGN of the inquiry should include the plan, the evaluation and reflection on the data and the answer to the question.