School Leader Views on Professional Development

As a follow-up to the quantitative study discussed earlier, twenty international school administrators were interviewed in depth. All participants expressed the importance of PD in international schools and how their unique context calls for unique solutions. They also agreed that administrators must take the lead in defining the nature of PD in their schools. All agreed that PD activities should be guided by best practices, yet this was not always the case. Specific PD activities varied, based mostly on school size and budgets. Interview results indicated the emergence of certain themes, which are discussed in this chapter. While administrators indicated that PD should be a collaborative process among teachers, they also felt that PD should be led by administrators. Regardless of size, budget, or academic programs, administrators agreed that there was no formal assessment and evaluation of PD. In fact, they found the development of such practice daunting at best, and while survey methods were used to gather information about PD activities that teachers engaged in, there were no tools in place to evaluate teachers’ learning from PD.