In the past, most technology professional development programs/plans were aimed at large groups of teachers - all the teachers in a school or even all of the teachers in a district. Perhaps the most common practice was for the Technology Coordinator to identify skill areas thought to be needed in the district and then offer one or more workshops (usually 1-3 hours long) on either a voluntary or required basis. While this practice was well-intentioned and accomplished some good, it could rarely be credited with effectively integrating technology into the teaching/learning process. For one thing, while such programs might reflect district directions they could not take advantage of "the teachable moment" in terms of teachers' needs.

Development and implementation of Individual Professional Development Plans (IPDP) offers individuals an opportunity to identify their specific strengths, needs and interests in relation to their students' performance and to design or select professional development activities customized to their learning styles, time parameters, and resource availability. All of this is, of course, done in the context of School Improvement Plans and district-wide initiatives.

All of the activities in the previous step, Setting the Stage, provide solid foundation and guidance for IPDP development. In fact, the first step in developing one's IPDP should be to review assessment results, notes, and reflections from Setting the Stage Activities. A worksheet such as IPDP (p.1) will assist in that review.

Each educator participant will then identify objectives that when accomplished will lead to improved student learning in their own classroom or sphere of influence. Then, with the help of colleagues (technology coordinator, director of professional development, fellow teachers and administrators, etc.), they will plan activities and actions that will help achieve the objectives. Professional development activities can encompass a wide variety of methods. In fact, the National Staff Development Council describes five primary models for professional development and suggests that combinations of the models may work best for some schools/educators. IPDP (p.2) provides a method of identifying professional development strategies.

Action Research or Inquiry is the model that this project emphasizes. However, all the other models may be used at some point within the inquiry or for identified needs that fall outside the scope of an individual's inquiry focus. For instance, a teacher may want to investigate the impact of concept mapping (using Inspiration) and need training or peer-coaching to learn to use the software effectively. Other teachers may also want to learn to use the software for use in their classrooms, but have an entirely different inquiry focus. IPDPs, developed through the strategies outlined in this project, help educators organize their own professional development needs and activities and at the same time provides a mechanism for collaboration with colleagues where interests and needs overlap.

While an IPDP could be seen as a solitary initiative, this project brings individuals together so that the learning is enhanced by collaboration with colleagues. As you view the support documents on this site, you'll see that one of the pilot sites made Action Research the primary focus of the IPDP, while the other pilot used Action Research as one important component among several. We believe that Action Research or Inquiry is vital to reflective practice and professional growth. But our pilots demonstrated that there is more than one approach to implementing it as part of an Individual Professional Development Plan.

Use the accompanying Individual Technology Professional Development Plan pages to help guide this step or design another structure. Review the Sample documents from the pilot sites to see how the two sites differed in their approaches.