Understanding the Teacher Professional Development Facilitators and Barriers to Serve a Diverse Student Population

Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing interest in serving the needs of diverse learners. Many schooldistricts in response to this growing interest have launched special in-service programs to educate andtrain teachers on culturally sensitive teaching approaches for serving diverse learners. Many of theseprofessional development programs have implemented one-shot workshops that attempt to transformthe school-environment and teacher practices. Although, such efforts have consistently yielded little tono impact on transformation of the school environment and teacher practices they continue to be thepreferred teacher professional development model. Nothing has been so frustrating and wasteful as thethousand of conducted one-shot workshops that have led to no significant change in teacher practices(Fullan, 1991). Consequently, on the Southside of Chicago 10 Catholic elementary school principalsformed the Council 10-A consortium. The council was established to address and share ideas thatwould add to the quality of Catholic school education in the 21st century. The council identified diversityas one major issue confronting the delivery of high quality catholic education. The council reported thatthe one-shot teacher in-service workshops were not enough to create long-term change in the school environmentand/or teacher practices. Therefore, the Catholic Schools 10-A Council enlisted theassistance of a partnership with the School of Education at Saint Xavier University to develop adiversity project that would address systems and teacher change over a three-year period. Thepurpose of this article is to reflect on the teacher professional development facilitators and barrierseffecting ten private schools with respect to serving a diverse student population.