RE: Staff Development Days

I completely agree with Renee....glad she brought this up.  So many "Staff Development Days" in my district were hit-and-run, dog-and-pony shows, and even those with some follow-up in-service time, often with good stuff, were not extensively incorporated by most teachers. Staff development MUST be long-term, requiring teacher committments to try strategies/materials, with frequent opportunities for shared feedback and assistance. 

The best staff development I ever experienced was the NSF-sponsored ENSI program (Evolution and Nature of Science Institutes), which involved 3 weeks of intensive study and activity in a live-in summer program on a university campus, with all teachers committing to develop a plan incorporating main elements of the institute.  Each plan was critiqued by the 3 ENSI  coordinators, and eventually implemented by each teacher early in the school year, followed by a two-day retreat/follow-up where the implemented experiences were shared and critiqued by all teachers.

A second teaching plan was also processed in the same way, presented by the teachers later in the year, and shared for critiquing at a similar 2-day retreat in the Spring.  Implementation rates were phenomenal, as was success experienced by the teachers.  Subsequent dialogue was extended in several ways: e-mail, financial support for participation in biology teachers conventions over the next several years (each with followup/sharing meetings), many of the ENSI teachers setting up and teaching Satellite ENSIs (SENSIs, extending much of the ENSI program to local teachers) over the next several years, and the establishment of an ENSI website where the many lessons developed could be shared with science teachers everywhere.