This document discusses continuous professional development for effective academic leadership. It identifies four key pieces of continuous professional development: 1) observing teaching and giving feedback, 2) internal and external coaching of teachers, 3) professional discussion platforms, and 4) encouraging teacher action research. The goal of academic leadership is to ensure good learning for every child, which requires a competent team achieved through continuous professional development.

1. Continuous Professional Development
For Effective Academic Leadership
Vijay Gupta

2. What is Effective Academic Leadership?
• Leadership is all about achieving agreed goals, along with
team members, with values guiding the means
• Goal for Academic Leadership is nothing but ensuring
good learning for every child
• Academic leader cannot achieve this goal without a
competent team
• A team becomes competent, and remains competent, with
Continuous Professional Development

3. Four pieces of Continuous Professional
Development
• Process for observing teaching and giving feedback
• Internal and external coaching of teachers
• Platform and time for professional discussion
• Encouraging teachers to do Action Research

4. Process for Observing Teaching
& Giving Feedback
• Idea of what capabilities we are looking for
• Observing those capabilities in teachers systematically. Critique the given
teacher observation sheet (we can use teaching frameworks like the one
by Charlotte Danielson).
• Giving feedback – goal referenced, timely, specific, on going, byte sized,
consistent and encourages self-assessment – (respectfully relentless –
relentlessly respectful) – begin with positives
“Good teachers are not found through some magical recruitment pipeline. They are
made, over time.”

5. Internal & External Coaching
• Process for observing teaching gives inputs on where
teachers need coaching
• Coaching can be done internally by senior (in competence)
teachers
• Or, by external coaches
• Academic leader is responsible for allocating time for such
coaching

6. Professional Discussion
• Teachers, in small groups, engage in professional
discussion for an hour or so, every fortnight/month
• Discussion can be on what someone has read, successes
and failures experienced, seminars attended etc.
• A good source for continuous professional reading is ASCD

7. Action Research
• “Action Research is a disciplined process of inquiry
conducted by and for those taking the action. The primary
reason for engaging in action research is to assist the
‘actor’ in improving and/or refining his or her actions”
• When teachers engage in Action Research their sense of
self-efficacy goes into a virtuous cycle

8. Discussion…

9. Thank You