Professional+Development+Committee

Members of the PD committee include Angie MacEwen, Dawna Shengle, Don Cochran, Derrick Hoffman, and Liz Hartman.

It was decided that the PD committee would meet on Mondays at 1:00. Four members of the group will already be at SSC that day. Liz will adjust her schedule accordingly. First PD committee meeting will be December 19th at 1 PM. It was decided to try to keep the meetings to 2 hours and members would be committed to being as productive as possible during that time period. This decision will be PDCA’d intermittently to see if more time might be necessary.

We will try to answer the following questions:
 * Why do the Department and/or District need PD?
 * How do we go about providing that PD?
 * What things should we be trying to teach?

We will begin with a focus on PD for our department. The following questions were deemed important:
 * Should we provide some in depth trainings so we front-load our knowledge?
 * What do we need to make PD possible?
 * Who should do the training(s)?
 * Who should be involved in the training(s)?
 * How and when will the training(s) take place?

Some other comments and considerations were discussed as follows:
 * Our committee can recommend full day mac training, at-length subject specific trainings, etc., with the understanding that it will need to get final approval from Erv and/or other interested parties.
 * ‘Train the Trainer’ class was discussed – should that training be required for anyone in ISTS who is going to do PD?
 * Make PD relevant to the user’s experience and / or usage.
 * How is PD being delivered and how will future PD be delivered?
 * Can we get to the point that we create totally online classes?
 * Can we get to the point where we are creating podcast?
 * From what central location can training materials (both for ISTS alone and district-wide training) be accessed? This will work in conjunction with the Communications Project Committee.

It was decided that our main form of communication will be via a Wikispace created by Don. He will give each member of the committee administrative rights to the Wiki. This will be a way for Erv and Steve to be able to follow along and take note of the progress that is being made. It adds to transparency in communication and aligns us with the District goals of communication.

At the first meeting on December 19th, a protocol for meetings will be developed, which will include creating an agenda for upcoming meetings.

Don emailed each member a study guide for Professional Development Criteria that the District Professional Development Committee is using. Each member of this group committed to reading it through before the December 19th meeting. The guide for Professional Development Criteria is also being posted on this wiki