The Application of an Individual Professional Development Plan to Gifted Education

Abstract

Research indicates that ongoing, high-quality staff development is essential to achieving significant standards-based reform (Sparks, 2002). Currently, the majority of teachers do not regularly participate in staff development practices in the United States (Richardson, 2002). Staff development decisions have traditionally been made by school administrators to meet the needs of students and to address school, district, and national goals in gifted education. In this model, teachers have been sideline observers with little or no participation in the planning of these professional development efforts. While this paradigm is cost- and time-efficient, this one- size-fits-all approach to staff development fails to address the learning needs of each teacher in a district (Richardson).