An evaluation of PREPS English II Subject Area professional development series

The need for effective professional development for teachers has been well established. However, evaluation of professional development series has seldom gone beyond measuring the immediate satisfaction of participants at the end of sessions. This study applied Thomas Guskey's model of professional development to evaluate the PREPS English II Subject Area professional development series.; The study evaluated the professional development in five dimensions. Analysis of the final evaluation form showed that the participants rated the professional development as effective. They cited as reasons for the effectiveness of the workshop the active involvement of the participants allowing them to experience the learning strategies, opportunities for collaboration and sharing among the teachers, and the fact that the presenter of the workshops was a teacher. The workshop improved the participants' knowledge of the instructional strategies, their skill in using the strategies, and to the greatest extent, their attitude about the strategies. Working through the strategies rather than simply being told about them and having a teacher as a presenter were the factors which contributed to their increased knowledge and skills and their improved attitude. The participants ranked the organizational structures and policies of their schools at a medium level. Teachers who implemented the strategies to the greatest degree labeled their school culture and organization positively. The participants reported a high level of implementation for the strategies they saw modeled in professional development series. The active learning environment of the workshop in which the participants experienced the strategies was an important factor in their implementation of the strategies. Another important factor which convinced the teachers to implement the strategies was that the leader of the workshop was a teacher. It was also important that the teacher/presenter could relate having actually used the strategies in her classroom. The participants indicated that they thought the workshops improved their students' performance in the classroom and on the English II Subject Area test.