Professional Development Goal

My Professional Development Goal

As an educator, I want to continue to grow and develop so I can provide my students with up to date and relevant information in the subject areas that I will be teaching.  It will be important that I continually assess myself and my teaching style to make corrections and enhancements where needed.  Having an outline or a road map in the form of a PDQP will allow me to stay on task and continually reflect on where I am heading as a professional educator and a student. 

When looking at the timeline I created in PowerPoint, you will see in years one and two, I will be enrolled in the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program which will ultimately allow me to clear my preliminary teaching credential.   I am very fortunate to be teaching a school that has a very comprehensive BTSA and mentoring program.  Completion of this program will aide me in my lesson planning and classroom management skills.  It ultimately helps to ensure a smooth transition into the classroom.

In years two and three, as my BTSA program is wrapping up, I intend to take a few college level math courses which will help me prepare for and pass the CSET in Mathematics.  By obtaining an additional single subject authorization to teach math, I would be providing the school the ability and flexibility to create math/science teaching blocks, which is something the director indicated she wanted to move toward.  Also, having this authorization makes me a stronger teacher of science and enables me to aide more students.

As year three wraps up and I have successfully passed all three subsets of the Math CSET, in year four, I would then like to enroll in the yearlong New Science Teacher Academy offered by the National Science Teachers Association.  This program is specifically designed to aide new science teachers in obtaining mastery of their subject matter and helps create cutting edge curriculum and lesson plans.  I will be partnered up with a mentor who is a fellow of the NSTA and a wealth of resources and expertise will be available to me as I continue to grow in my subject area. 

Completion of the NSTA requirements and application to be a fellow after the completion of the New Science Teacher Academy will occupy much of my fifth year.  As a new fellow, I may be called upon to mentor a new science teacher much like I was mentored.  One of the benefits of this program will allow me to become a resource within my own school.  I can offer assistance and mentor any new science teachers.  This will also help drive the level of learning and understanding amongst my peers. 

On the timeline, I listed year 6 and beyond, because I don’t ever intend to stop learning and growing as both a student and an educator.  I listed that I would be interested in obtaining my Masters in either history or a science.  I would pursue this if could be beneficial in allowing my school site to obtain the added ability to offer dual enrollment to our high school students.  My bachelor’s is in history, so obtaining a Master’s degree in history would be more easily achieved.  To obtain a Master’s degree in science, I would have to go back and take some bachelors level classes before I could progress toward a Masters.