Narrative: b. 3. A.

Professional Development

It is important for college faculty and secondary teachers to continue professional growth, and to do so, college faculty and secondary teachers need to set clear goals and means to accomplish these goals. Professional development includes continuing improvement in: teaching and learning skills and methods, discipline and program content, student interactions, service to the school, the college and the greater community, and personal growth related to the secondary school teacher’s or a postsecondary faculty’s employment responsibilities.

The Career and Technical Education Professional Development Director continues to provide ongoing and strategic oversight of professional development initiatives and activities related to CTE in Minnesota and nationally. This includes planning statewide professional development conferences, producing online training resources, and providing ongoing technical assistance to Mn Perkins consortia for their local planning and delivery of professional development. Priority topics for Mn CTE professional development are the formation of pedagogical strategies to provide culturally competent curriculum; increasing the capacity of CTE professional programs to recognize and address the impact that battling poverty has on students; and providing work-based learning guidelines for secondary, postsecondary and workforce partners. In addition, the CTE staff is involved in providing strategic direction to statewide CTE teacher preparation programs. Work will continue to provide professional development for initial teacher and community experts (industry experts) to facilitate the movement of these teachers through Minnesota's new tiered licensure structure and provide transition support as the newly formed Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) formulates policy and practice implementing teacher licensing laws (https://mn.gov/pelsb/).

Secondary --- The Minnesota Department of Education and the Office of the Chancellor provide updates at all quarterly meetings of the Minnesota Association of Career and Technical Administrators. Implementation of the Perkins Act, including promotion of opportunities to address academic content in career and technical education programs, is a regular part of these updates.

The Minnesota Department of Education and the Office of the Chancellor promoted the Math-in-CTE model as developed by the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education throughout Minnesota, especially through targeted work in the areas of health and manufacturing. While the timing did not allow continuation of pilot work beyond the 2007-2008 transition year the State intends to continue to promote this successful model across all CTE curricula.

As Minnesota implements teacher centers with a focus on delivery of mathematics and science concepts, professional development will be provided to several affiliates of the Minnesota Association for Career and Technical Education, to which many secondary CTE teachers belong. The aim here is to focus on encouraging the use of CTE courses to reinforce mathematics and science concepts.

Postsecondary --- At the postsecondary level, each college is required to establish a policy to implement the faculty development process which shall include the development of faculty professional development plans. College faculty and administration must work together to establish the college policy on faculty professional development. Each faculty member prepares an individual professional development plan according to the timelines and criteria specified in the college professional development policy.

The purpose of the professional development plan is to identify activities and/or strategies to be used by the faculty member to maintain currency in the faculty member’s credential field(s) and in teaching and learning skills and may include activities that go beyond maintaining currency. The plan shall be developed by the faculty member in consultation with the faculty member’s supervisor and shall address specific objectives and expected outcomes with respect to the following components, as appropriate to the faculty member’s needs:

1. Content knowledge and skill in the discipline/program;
2. Teaching methods and instructional strategies;
3. Related work experience;
4. Study appropriate to the higher education environment;
5. Service to the college and the greater community; and
6. Other components, as appropriate.

The CTE Professional Development Director along with the entire Perkins State Leadership team also coordinates and presents a fall Best Practices conference for career and technical administrators and teachers/faculty. This conference spotlights promising practices identified during our monitoring visits, from the review of the local applications, and from practices described in emerging research literature. Guest speakers set the tone (FY10 was Kim Green, Executive Director of the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium) and individuals attend a number of breakout sessions. Past participation included as many as 450 participants from local districts and colleges in attendance.