Professional Development
For Educators

The most effective training programs include:

• exploration of theory,
• demonstrations of practice,
• supervised trials of new skills with
  feedback on performance, and
• coaching within the workplace.

Project SEED implements professional development programs in the districts with Project SEED classroom instruction. The on-going models of SEED's extremely effective Socratic group-discovery pedagogy and challenging mathematics in daily Project SEED lessons provide the basis for Project SEED specialists to work as staff developers with classroom teachers. These teachers, seeing the success of their own students in the Project SEED lessons, are inspired to create that joy in their classes every day as well. Project SEED professional development adds to the teachers' knowledge and helps them raise the bar for their students.

Project SEED professional development for educators is a structured approach that includes a combination of staff development workshops for all teachers, one-on-one intensive training for teachers receiving classroom instruction, on-going training with periodic meetings for other teachers, and small group seminars throughout the school year. The workshop setting allows methodological and mathematical topics to be developed. The one-on-one training provides daily models of effective methodology and advanced mathematics along with observation of the classroom teacher in a peer coaching situation, feedback on observations, and consultations on teacher-specific topics. The small group seminars allow Project SEED specialists and teachers to discuss pedagogical topics such as those above and to practice new approaches.

This model of staff development provides training that incorporates the best practices of professional development and is very successful. Teacher feedback indicates that Project SEED methodology provides them with effective classroom strategies and curriculum approaches. They also respond that the on-campus long-term interaction is effective in helping them clearly understand the pedagogical ideas and put them into practice.

For the Project SEED home page, press