5-year Professional Development Plan

Timeline

1st year
2016 - 2017

Professional Goals
Get a full time teaching position
Attend CSTA Conference
Oct. 21-23, 2016, Palm Springs,
NSTA National Conference
March 30-April 2, 2017, Los Angeles
SCAAPT workshops
Dec. 2016, March 2017
Attend CSTA Conference, TBD
NSTA National Conference, TBD

nd

2 year
2017 - 2018

SCAAPT workshops, TBD

AP physics teacher course
Attend CSTA Conference, TBD
NSTA National Conference, TBD

rd

3 year
2018 - 2019

SCAAPT workshops
Mathematics certification
Attend CSTA Conference, TBD

4th year
2019 - 2020

NSTA National Conference, TBD

SCAAPT workshops
Robotics courses
Attend CSTA Conference, TBD

5th year
2020 - 2021

NSTA National Conference, TBD

SCAAPT workshops
Chemistry certification

My five-year professional development plan is a combination of further developing my

mastery of my subject in-depth as much as further developing the skills of presenting it
incorporating various new methods as well as following the guidelines of the evolving
Next Generation Science Standards. The other aspect of my professional development
plan for the next five years is to learn new subjects and master them to the level where I
can teach them officially, that is get certificated in them. Right now the primary goal of
mine is to get a teaching position teaching my subject, physics. The other professional
development plans are achievable without being a full time teacher, but the practical
experience that comes from being in the classroom cannot be replaced. That is important
in setting professional development goals, since one learns about ones strong suits and
what areas need to be addressed with special focus, and why, can be found out only
empirically. But as it stands, these are my goals for the next five years. I plan to attend on
a regular, yearly basis the professional conferences offered by both the California Science
Teachers Association and the National Science Teachers Association. In addition to these
conferences I will attend the twice-yearly workshops for professional development
offered to new physics teachers by the Southern California chapter of American
Association of Physics Teachers, which is subject specific as well as targeting new
physics teachers just starting out in their profession. This is a new organization, and the
very first of these workshops in the San Diego area was offered only last year. This is a
little surprising for me because high school science has been taught in Southern
California for a long time.

My professional development plan for the next five years is multi-faceted. I also plan to
get certificated to be able to teach mathematics as well as chemistry. I feel that it is
natural to do so, since mathematics is the language of nature, that is physics, and
chemistry is the other basic science next to physics. Although chemistry is the science of
materials changing their characteristics, those new compounds still have to obey the basic
natural laws, such as pressure, temperature etc. In essence, I plan to become a complete
basic science teacher. Once there, I will attend the conferences for those subjects, too, so
my professional development will be continuous and ever wider, not only in the
mentioned subjects, but in the methodologies of teaching/presenting those subjects in the
most optimal level. I also plan to get involved in science clubs as well as robotics but the
opportunities to get involved in those fields is/will be dependent on the school where I
will be teaching. I do plan to get involved in them all the same, and if not existent in the
school I plan to start those clubs and get other teachers and the administration involved,
too. I very much plan to keep busy developing and broadening my skills as a physics, and
later mathematics and chemistry teacher. It is important to have goals that correlate to
ones professional development that address the standards of ones subject, because as
Constantino and De Lorenzo (2009) state, performance standards identify the
knowledge disposition and skills that a teacher should know and be able to demonstrate
(p.67). Furthermore goals identify areas for professional development and correlate with
performance standards (Constantino & DeLorenzo, 2009, p.67.).

References
Costantino, P. & De Lorenzo, M. (2009). Developing a professional teaching portfolio: A
guide for success (3rd Ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.