Professional Development

The COSA Professional Development staff is committed to promoting your continued professional growth. COSA's activities are designed to expand your knowledge, to sharpen your leadership skills and to help you gain in-depth knowledge about educational trends and issues.

Come to our events and learn with your colleagues!

COSA's professional learning opportunities are developed based on the foundation provided by NSDC's National Standards for Staff Development (Revised, 2001).

NSDC's National Standards for Staff Development

CONTEXT STANDARDS
Staff development that improves the learning of all students:

  • Organizes adults into learning communities whose goals are aligned with those of the school and district. (Learning Communities)
  • Requires skillful school and district leaders who guide continuous instructional improvement. (Leadership)
  • Requires resources to support adult learning and collaboration. (Resources)

PROCESS STANDARDS
Staff development that improves the learning of all students:

  • Uses disaggregated student data to determine adult learning priorities, monitor progress, and help sustain continuous improvement. (Data-Driven)
  • Uses multiple sources of information to guide improvement and demonstrate its impact. (Evaluation)
  • Prepares educators to apply research to decision making. (Research-Based)
  • Uses learning strategies appropriate to the intended goal. (Design)
  • Applies knowledge about human learning and change. (Learning)
  • Provides educators with the knowledge and skills to collaborate. (Collaboration)

CONTENT STANDARDS
Staff development that improves the learning of all students:

  • Prepares educators to understand and appreciate all students, create safe, orderly and supportive learning environments, and hold high expectations for their academic achievement. (Equity)
  • Deepens educators' content knowledge, provides them with research-based instructional strategies to assist students in meeting rigorous academic standards, and prepares them to use various types of classroom assessments appropriately. (Quality Teaching)
  • Provides educators with knowledge and skills to involve families and other stakeholders appropriately. (Family Involvement)