SYNERGIE – Systematic, Sustainable and Evidence-Oriented Professional Development in Schools

Project Description

Given the current challenges facing schools, educational staff are constantly called upon to further develop their professional competencies. Necessary staff development measures are ideally embedded in an overall school development plan. However, current professional development practices deviate significantly from this ideal. SYNERGIE aims to equip principals with the skills to plan professional development programs in a targeted manner and integrate them into the development of the entire school. To this end, a modular training series on professional development planning for school leaders is being developed. In subproject 1, the professional development series is evaluated through surveys of participants and teachers at the participating schools. While the original concept is aimed at school principals and assistant principals, in Berlin there is a particular focus on middle management and its role in strategic professional development planning and school development. As part of subproject 2, the project supports the training of multipliers who will continue the professional development series beyond the project’s duration and can transfer the concept to other schools and federal states. In addition, the project is producing guides containing the professional development content, which are intended to support the further dissemination of the concept.

Project Objectives

The project aims to provide sustainable support for quality development in schools by equipping school leaders with the skills to engage in comprehensive and systematic professional development planning. Over the course of the project, school leaders will be trained to create a shared vision for targeted school-wide and instructional measures. Based on this vision, they will learn to systematically organise internal staff development and evaluate its success. The project focuses on the question of to what extent systematically designed professional development planning has measurable effects on key aspects of school development, student-centered approaches, and the use of internal school data and scientific evidence. To this end, the knowledge, attitudes, and actions of the participants as well as the teachers at the schools will be assessed.
 

Funding

Cooperations

Universität Potsdam (Prof. Dr. Dirk Richter; network coordination)

Bergische Universität Wuppertal (Prof. Dr. Cornelia Gräsel)

Project Management

Project Team

Project Details