Journal Article Summary/Application

Journal Article Summary and Application

This presents the summary of the article Staff development and student learning : A synthesis of research on models of teaching ' by Bruce Joyce , Beverly Showers and Carol Rolheiser-Bennett published in the Educational Leadership on October of 1987 . The second half of the will discuss how the findings of this could be applied to real life situations . The objective of this is to demonstrate that theoretical assumptions of the authors about staff development can actually be used to enhance curriculums that would result to increased student performance

p Summary

This article argues that staff development must be and can be used to develop school programs and curriculums that would result to increased student performance and better learning . The authors discussed that the recent developments in the field of staff development have been very useful in designing new educational programs for students because the findings of said research have provided educational leaders the guide to which staff development can enhance student learning , provided innovative ideas and programs for more student involvement and a wider application of the different learning models . The authors assumed that the theoretical models and program designs that could be adopted to effectively improve student performance would only work in as much as how effectively the staff has been developed and trained . Thus , for the authors , staff development should come first before any improvements or programs can be designed and developed . The most important aspect of the measure of student performance and improvement was the effect size According to the authors , effect size is akin to the level of change or value that was supposed to have occurred due to an intervening process or variable . Effect size can be used to determine how much the improvement was relative to its original value , effect size is important because it could tell just how effective the intervention was in bringing about change . On the other hand , the authors also pointed out that high effect size is desired but often a small effect size for a large number of people is more desirable as it would bring about greater change . The authors also discussed the teaching models that have been found to have yielded promising results and those that have been applied successfully in some research studies . Social models of learning refers to group and cooperative learning against individual learning , it has been found that students who learn by cooperation and group work are more socially equipped , have better self-concept and positive attitudes to learning . The authors recommend that staff development on how to teach cooperative learning can actually lead to better academic performance . Information processing models make use of the learning process as the strategy to help students retain more information and learn more in a given period . The authors mentioned the use of advanced organizers and mnemonics , which both had been proven to increase student learning and output but this would require intensive training of teachers and a highly technical staff development...