PROFESSIONAL SATISFACTION

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While our consultants generally provide professional development directly to teachers in schools across the district, we can also enhance existing school-based professional development programs where districts choose to retain their own coaches.
This methodology and structure enhances the three key aspects of any effective program of professional development: Relevance—Using assessment data and administrator input ensures that teachers get the professional development they need in time for it to make a difference to their students right now.
Simply put, the school-based approach requires too many coaches with highly developed skills and experience in teaching (across many grades), staff development, assessment, curriculum development, and administration.
Specialists use modules created by the Research Development group and customized to each teacher's needs.
Next-Generation Teacher Coaching | The Princeton Review
It then integrates this data with the schedules of teachers and math specialists in order to create an individualized development plan for each teacher.
Test Prep, Instructional Support, Guidance Support, princeton, review, Enrollment Management, SES
Flexibility—Professional development plans are designed to conform to varied teacher schedules and are tailored to address individually identified needs.
This professional development toolkit includes online instructional materials to which teachers also have access from any Internet-connected computer.
The Princeton Review's methodology for next-generation teacher coaching addresses the limitations of school-based coaching by dividing the superset of necessary skills among three specialized teams, who together deliver professional development in collaboration with regional leadership tiers: The Research Development team creates and collates professional development modules that are delivered by our Content Specialists to your teachers and staff developers.
These "IEPs for professional development" evolve over time in response to ongoing data analysis and the teacher's evolving mastery.
The Content Specialist-Consultants deliver the professional development to teachers in small groups and one-on-one sessions.
We also believe that in an age of accountability, professional development should be effective in improving student outcomes and teacher satisfaction.

At The Princeton Review, we know that professional development is most effective when it is based on timely and relevant data, linked closely to curriculum and state standards, and delivered in time to improve student understanding before it is too late.

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Depending on the situation, you could offer a listening ear or a referral to a mentor, interpersonal-skill adviser or mental health professional.
To derive more satisfaction from your work, begin by developing a vision of how you want to practice.
She is president of Intentional Leadership Systems and an associate of the Center for Professional Well-Being.
John-Henry Pfifferling, PhD, and Kay Gilley, MS Covered in FPM Quiz SPEEDBAR® To deal with stress, start by identifying what aspects of your professional and personal lives still bring you joy.
6 LIFE BALANCE Putting 'Life' Back Into Your Professional Life Here are ideas you can use to replace your burnout with the joy you once felt for practicing family medicine.
org In addition to workshops and seminars, the Center for Professional Well-Being offers individual and practice assessments, telephone consultations and a newsletter in which physicians exchange ideas about professional satisfaction.
Putting 'Life' Back Into Your Professional Life - June 1999 Family Practice Management
(For information about organizations that offer help with professional renewal, see "Resources for physician wellness," page 38.
While you may initially find this uncomfortable, it will almost certainly give you greater satisfaction with your profession and your life, as well as a renewed vigor to meet the challenges that lie ahead.
Taking time to reflect on your professional values may seem highly impractical in clinical practice; after all, you're overextended as it is.
You can derive more satisfaction from your work by changing your approach to frustrating activities or situations.
One physician confided to us that he had become involved with a much younger nurse, left his 25-year marriage, bought a new Porsche and a new house, and traveled all over the world -- only to find himself with the same dissatisfaction five years later.
Take the time to recognize and even celebrate an accomplishment, a professional milestone or the achievement of a personal goal -- yours or someone else's.
Fax: 805-547-1200 The PhysicianWellness Foundation offers conferences and retreats to help health care professionals deal with change.
Fax: 650-329-1887 The Center for Professional and Personal Renewal offers one- and two-day workshops that focus on revitalizing physicians' professional and personal lives.
KEY POINTS: To recapture joy, begin by identifying where joy still exists in your personal and professional lives.
By the time physicians arrive at the Center for Professional Well-Being, many are on the verge of complete despair.
Although it may be uncomfortable to approach your work and personal life differently, you'll get more satisfaction if you don't fall back into old, less healthy coping strategies.
If they don't want their children to start professional life with the burden of debt, they may keep up a fast pace to help pay for college or professional school.
Reflection can be seen as unprofessional or somehow incongruous with the persona of a super-busy doctor.
Even with lots of time to spend on the golf course or traveling, the dissatisfaction usually recurs.
Workshops are held several times annually and are led by practicing physicians and experts in professional renewal.
If you plan to continue to work in the same environment, you'll need to understand that you have options about your practice life; this will help you derive more satisfaction from your work.
) Overstressed physicians need to pinpoint aspects of their professional and personal lives where they still find joy.
To identify joy, ask yourself, "What rewarding experiences am I currently involved in that make me feel complete as a person?" Once you understand that you have the capacity to feel joy, you'll be less likely to settle for a "quick fix" in your personal and professional lives.
Their burnout and chronic fatigue are attempts to adapt to their decreased satisfaction about their lives and profession.
job satisfaction, life balance, stress management, burnout

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" Each stage includes a distinct set of motivators that can drive professional development at that point.
So as Extension positions itself to address contemporary issues affecting society, professional staff members will need to engage in lifelong learning in order to maintain professional expertise in relevant areas (Martin, 1991).

These motivators provide both the impetus for participating in and the criteria for selecting from among various professional development opportunities.
A long-term perspective enables us to more efficiently and effectively use the time we are able to devote to professional development.
Motivators for professional development at the colleague stage include: (a) developing an area of expertise; (b) becoming an independent contributor in problem solving; (c) developing a professional identity; (d) gaining membership in the professional community; (e) expanding creativity and innovation; and (f) moving from independence to interdependency.
Central motivators for professional development include attaining the foundation skills required to do the job and understanding the organization's structure, function, and culture at that point in the organization's history.
Recognizing the unique characteristics of professional careers, Dalton, Thompson, and Price (1977) introduced a career stage model for professional growth that identifies and describes four distinct stages of professional careers.
For each professional development goal, list those professional development opportunities you wish to pursue that will assist you in reaching those goals.
We believe that by supporting staff members in professional growth we improve job performance as well as increase levels of personal satisfaction.
Putting the Model to Work We believe the model provides an excellent base from which professionals can begin to focus and articulate their plans for growth.
Examples of professional development goals might be to gain knowledge and skills necessary to work more effectively with culturally diverse audiences or to expand expertise in natural resources programming.
Growing Through the Stages: A New Look at Professional Growth
Individuals in the colleague stage have been accepted as members of the professional community and independently contribute their expertise to solving problems and carrying out programs.
The approach requires a long-term perspective and encourages work toward clearly articulated professional development goals while being flexible enough to accommodate shorter-term changes in roles and program focus.
To accommodate personal development needs counselor-level professionals often seek to develop additional areas of expertise beyond those they currently possess.
The continuing professional development of faculty and staff will be necessary to meet the demands and expectations of the new workplace (Extension Committee on Organization and Policy, 1992).
In this article we introduce a model for professional growth currently being used by the Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service that encourages advance planning and focuses on the individual agent.
The Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service is committed to enabling all professional staff members to reach their fullest potential both as individuals and as members of the Extension system.
Motivators for Professional Development at the counselor stage include: (a) acquiring broad-based expertise; (b) attaining leadership positions in professional circles; (c) developing networks with other organizations; (d) stimulating thought in others; (e) counseling other professionals; (f) developing coaching and mentoring relationships; and (g) facilitating self-renewal and rebirth.
The Counselor Stage Professionals who have reached the counselor stage are ready to take on responsibility, either formal or informal, for developing others in the organization.
The Colleague Stage The colleague stage can be a satisfactory level for many professionals for a number of years, as long as growth in expertise or responsibility continues.
Participation in professional development opportunities is seldom done to meet a specific need articulated in advance.
Motivators for professional development at the entry stage include: (a) understanding the organization's structure, function, and culture; (b) attaining base level technical skills; (c) giving relevancy to previous training; (d) exercising directed creativity and initiative; (e) moving from dependency to independence; (f) exploring personal/professional dynamics; and (g) building relationships with professional peers.
Motivators for professional development at the advisor stage include: (a) becoming involved in strategic organizational planning; (b) achieving the respect of others in the organization; (c) engaging in innovation and risk-taking; (d) understanding complex relationships; (e) achieving a position of influence; (f) "sponsoring" individuals, programs, and people; and (g) increasing responsibility.
The most unique feature of this model is that it acknowledges variation in professional growth needs at different points in one's professional career.

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Table 5- Presentation of results for TJSQ The different hierarchical regression equations (calculated for job satisfaction in general, measured by the TJSQ, and for its five subscales), led us to the global conclusion that psychological variables have more predictive power than socio-demographic variables in analysing teacher job satisfaction.
The first hypothesis was the following: - aspects intrinsic to work (such as it being interesting and the sense of responsibility and achievement it provides), as compared to extrinsic factors (such as salary and promotions), seem to have more influence on satisfaction in the teaching profession.
Teacher satisfaction: some practical implications for teacher professional development models Graça Maria dos Santos Seco.
For this reason, we decided that in the model of hierarchical regression we should introduce first the independent psychological variables (locus of control, satisfaction with life in general, sense of autonomy, self-esteem and motivation), and then the socio-demographic ones (first the professional and then the personal ones), to check whether they revealed any additional predictive efficiency (even though they are considered less important) A synthesis of the main conclusions resulting from the resolution of the hierarchical regression equation when applied to the results obtained for 752 teachers in the sample is contained in the table.
) in teachers' satisfaction; - assess the predictive power of personal variables (such as age, sex, marital status, and education) and professional variables (level taught, duration of teaching experience, professional position) in teacher satisfaction.

) The same can be said about the Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (TJSQ), instrument used to measure teachers' satisfaction.
Thus, the personality features studied seem to play a more relevant differentiating role in explaining teachers' satisfaction than the classical variables, which, however, still explain a significant part of this satisfaction.
This is the framework of the present empirical study, conducted with the objective of clarifying the aspects of teaching to be encouraged and the psychological processes to be promoted so as to obtain the best possible adjustment (as condition of satisfaction) between teachers' personal features and a professional activity requiring very specific characteristics.
For a number of years, also teacher job satisfaction has been recognized as extremely important for implementing any type of education reform, for involving the teacher in life-long learning, for the quality of the teaching-learning process, and for satisfaction with life in general.
Thus the present empirical study was conducted with the following objectives : - assess the relative contribution of factors intrinsic to work (such as how interesting and challenging the job actually is) and of those which are extrinsic (pay, promotions, physical working conditions) in Portuguese teachers' satisfaction; - assess the predictive efficiency of some psychological constructs (such as self-esteem, locus of control, motivation to work, etc.
A review of the relevant literature showed that psychological constructs could have a greater predictive value in teacher job satisfaction than socio-demographic variables.
The personal variables included in the model were age, sex, marital status, and education; as regards professional variables, we considered aspects such as level taught, professional position, duration of teaching experience as well as other responsibilities in the school.
Empowering teachers in the exercise of job enrichment can be a major challenge for vocational training and development programmes, which must therefore seek to focus their attention on the psychological conditions more likely to generate teacher job satisfaction, in an effort of balanced articulation among the multiple facets of teacher professional growth and personal dimension.
This is one of our major objectives stemming from the fact that our study has clearly shown the relevance of personality features for the feeling of satisfaction in teaching.
This has happened for three main reasons: historical and/or cultural (from both a historical and a cultural viewpoint, increasing value has been attached to the quality of life at work, which is regarded more and more as a space of personal development); functional (not only for its intrinsic value as psychological variable directly affecting behaviour, but also because job satisfaction is a construct with implications and consequences on other attitudes, at individual as well as at organizational level); and practical (it is a variable which can be easily measured and used).
At the same time we must try to analyze the way in which the different phases and components of professional development should interact in a necessarily eclectic training practice, so as to maximize the conditions conducive to teacher well-being.
Since the ability to appreciate the privileges of teaching seems to depend chiefly on some personality skills, I would like to conclude by stressing the idea that we teachers who feel optimistic in and about their job", as one of the necessary conditions to experience more satisfaction in teaching.
In practical terms, we see, for example, that as regards job satisfaction in general (measured by TJSQ), psychological variables explain 45,3% of the variance of teacher job satisfaction; when we add socio-demographic variables, the percentage of variance explained rises to 47,6%, a 2,3% difference which, however, represents a significant increase, if we take into account the value of Significant Change (Sig Ch).
In our view, the results obtained show that programmes for teacher professional development (including initial and continuing education) must give greater relevance to the structuring of strategies to help build and develop personality skills.
The results obtained allow us to conclude that the nature of work itself (F1 in TJSQ) is more significantly associated with teachers' job satisfaction than the remaining factors.
Teacher satisfaction: some practical implications for teacher professional development models
Professional and personal variables could influence, albeit indirectly, such psychological constructs.
Table 2 - Independent psychological variables To measure the dependent variable of our study, we used a professional satisfaction tool devised by Lester (1982) on the basis of Maslow's and Herzberg's theoretical models - the Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (TJSQ), a Likert-type scale of 5 points.
Chart 1 - Exploratory conceptualization of a model of adjustment in teaching According to such conceptualization, the feeling of well-being in teaching would be influenced by the degree of adjustment between a professional activity we consider challenging, potentially innovative and involving a variety of skills, and some of the teacher's psychological variables.
The theoretical framework outlined above represented the basis for the formulation of our research question , which is centred around the assessment of the predictive efficacy of psychological constructs and of socio-demographic variables in teachers' job satisfaction.
CONCLUSION At a time in which education reforms are being revised and redirected, we hope our study has contributed to a better, albeit still partial, understanding of the factors more frequently associated with a teacher's sense of achievement and satisfaction.
A review of the existing literature enabled us to verify that a predominantly internal locus of control, an intrinsic motivational orientation, a positive self-esteem, a certain degree of autonomy at work and satisfaction with life in general were some of the teacher's personality features involved in the adjustment relation underlying the above model.
These should be selected among those which lead to a better adjustment to the teaching practice and context and, consequently, to a feeling of well-being and satisfaction.
pt Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Lisbon, 11-14 September 2002 INTRODUCTION1 Ever since the 1930s, Organizational Psychology has been devoting a great deal of attention to the study of job satisfaction.
The second hypothesis was that psychological constructs (such as motivation, sense of autonomy, self-esteem, and locus of control) present a greater predictive value for teacher job satisfaction than socio-demographic variables (such as age, sex, education, and professional position).
Thus, it is possible to conclude that the results obtained reveal: - a greater importance of the intrinsic dimension of work (such as the fact of being mentally interesting and challenging, of giving an individual a sense of-achievement and a certain diversity and autonomy); - a greater efficiency of the constructs related to personality features (such as locus of control, self-esteem and intrinsic motivation) in predicting teachers' job satisfaction vis-à-vis socio-demographic ones.