District Needs

Williamson County Schools serves over 27,600 students in Franklin, Tennessee and the surrounding towns.  With 36 schools and more being added soon, Williamson must provide consistent professional development to a large staff in many locations.  Karen Hawkins, Director of Professional Development at Williamson, is responsible for supporting schools and providing high-quality professional learning to thousands of teachers and administrators, a task which is often difficult.  In planning workshops, Hawkins has to be very sensitive to the busy schedules and scarce time of educators.  In addition, space only allows for a limited number of teachers to attend training sessions.  These two factors make it challenging to reach every teacher and administrator with a consistent message and focus.

An additional challenge is providing teachers with job-embedded and individualized resources. Workshops, although beneficial in many ways, often can not provide the type of differentiated learning that teachers need and want.  Says Hawkins, “We have many teachers who are highly motivated to constantly learn more about the best teaching practices—beyond what the district has the capacity to provide through workshops and onsite training.  They need tools they can access on their time that address their personal needs and interests and provide them with the learning they seek.”

Like a large number of districts, Williamson has turned over many of its professional development hours to site-based training, for which principals are typically responsible.  Although many principals have a great deal of professional development expertise, all could benefit from a resource that would make professional development more convenient to deliver and that would keep training consistent from one school to another.

The Solution

Hawkins heard about the School Improvement Network’s PD 360 through a neighboring school district.  When Hawkins saw a demo of PD 360 she was excited about the potential it had to make professional development more effective and accessible in her district.

“I immediately liked that PD 360 supported what we were currently doing by giving us another tool to deliver information to teachers,” says Hawkins.

PD 360 is an on-demand professional development resource that includes hundreds of searchable Video Journal of Education segments that address the most pertinent topics, including classroom instruction that works, assessment, data, English language learners, closing achievement gaps, differentiation, math, reading, and many others.  Each video segment features one or more of education’s most respected experts.  Districts can customize PD 360 by mapping segments to their own standards and objectives, as well as to the standards and focuses of their state and individual schools.  Because PD 360 is on-demand, teachers and administrators can access it anytime and anywhere they have an Internet connection.  Aligned to each segment is a digitized guidebook, which includes ideas for discussion, group activities, and reflection and allows a facilitator to easily prepare a group training session.

The Benefits

PD 360 was recently implemented in Williamson County Schools, first with the district’s principals and then with teachers.  Already both principals and teachers are excited about the way PD 360 will improve their professional development.

Common Language and Common Practice

“Because PD 360 is a customizable district-wide resource, it gives the district an opportunity to set a focus, align that focus to PD 360 segments, and make sure that every educator sees and learns the same things during their professional development.  We can finally ensure common language and common practice, which is a vital component to improving student learning, “says Hawkins.

More Convenient and Accessible Professional Development

Williamson teachers and administrators can access PD 360 from school, home, or anywhere else that is convenient for them.  Because PD 360 puts professional development at teachers’ fingertips in the classroom, teachers no longer have to wait for a workshop to receive the help they need.  With the shortage of time most educators face, the ability to access professional development conveniently is a necessity if training is to happen consistently.

Every aspect of PD 360 was designed with teachers and administrators in mind.  Historically, many online resources have been difficult to navigate and have subsequently made little impact on the quality of teaching in a district.  PD 360’s ease of use makes professional development accessible to teachers of all technology comfort levels and thus encourages every educator to utilize it.

A Job-Embedded Resource of Research-Based Best Practices

“PD 360 puts every resource in the hands of every teacher,” Hawkins says.  The wide variety of content ensures that teachers of every experience level can find individualized help.  Because all content in PD 360 is research-based, teachers only receive the highest-quality instruction and advice as they search for answers.

Says Hawkins, “The research-based strategies that are available through PD 360 gives teachers the opportunity to have the job-embedded professional development we know is so important.”

Even without using it for long, teachers have already responded positively to the new innovation in their district.  Hawkins has received emails from teachers with such responses as, “I am sold on PD” and “PD 360 is amazing!”

More Effective Site-Based Training

Principals, who now shoulder much of the burden for professional development in Williamson County Schools, are particularly excited about PD 360.  They love the digitized guidebooks because they make preparing group training sessions simple and ensure that training is focused on research-based best practices.  In addition, they find the reflection questions teachers answer after watching video segments to be a valuable tool to help them understand teachers’ needs, understanding, and progress.  For experienced and novice principals alike, PD 360 makes professional development easier.

Aside from using PD 360 as a training tool, principals and administrators are finding valuable content for themselves.  Williamson has action research groups for principals and after Hawkins gave a demonstration of PD 360, these groups immediately wanted to search PD 360 to find information and training for themselves.

Although new in the district, Williamson teachers and administrators are looking forward to how PD 360 will improve their teaching in order to increase student learning and achievement.