Effective staff development connected to increased student achievement

School districts expend considerable resources to establish effective staff development opportunities that lead to increased student achievement. This research project focused on the development, implementation, and evaluation of a school based staff development project built around four distinct instructional elements: teacher instructional practices, student engagement, stating the objective, and developing a literacy rich environment. Specifically, the study addressed the following research questions: (1) Did teachers' instructional practices change as a result of participating in the professional development program? (2) If teachers adopted the new instructional practices, did the changes have an impact on student performance as calculated on the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment? The study was established within a mixed methodology design in which changes in teacher performance were measured using qualitative research methods including survey, interview, and classroom observation data sets. To measure changes in student performance, traditional univariate and multivariate statistical techniques were utilized including a t-test, analysis of variance, and K-means cluster analysis. To conduct the study the researcher: (1) facilitated the design of the staff development model; (2) provided or facilitated foundation staff development on four key instructional elements to both teachers and administrators; (3) provided guidance to administrators on gathering key data; (4) provided support to teacher leaders and administrators on methods for coaching teachers adopting new practices; (5) observed teachers utilizing skills in practice; (6) gathered both perception and observation data related to teacher implementation of four key elements; (7) gathered and processed student academic performance data; and (8) studied the results measuring the impact of staff development on both teacher practices and student performance. The results of the study verified: (1) that teachers adopted or maintained teacher skill levels related to key instructional practices; (2) students' actual mean growth rates on MAP assessment exceeded projected mean growth rates in reading and language but not mathematics; and (3) students whose teachers exceeded proficient skill levels in instructional practices and student engagement demonstrated higher performance levels in reading and language on the MAP assessment than those students whose teachers met or approached desired skill levels in those two areas. I dedicate this work to my wife Nancy whose constant sacrifice and support made this opportunity possible.