ASCD, Pearson debut new online professional development tool

The educational leadership organization ASCD (formerly known as the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) has teamed up with Pearson to launch a new online school leadership program, called Principal Compass.

Created in collaboration with education researcher Robert Marzano and his Marzano Research Laboratory, Principal Compass is a cloud-based program that helps increase leadership effectiveness for K-12 principals and their teams, ASCD said. The organization announced the new tool during its 67^th annual conference in Philadelphia March 25.

Using technology developed at Johns Hopkins University, Principal Compass reportedly is the only integrated and scalable online professional development tool aligned with Marzano’s framework for principal growth and development. The evidence-based rubric focuses on five domains of competency, ASCD said:

• Data-driven focus on student achievement

• Continual improvement of instruction

• Guaranteed and viable curriculum

• Cooperation and collaboration

• School climate

The program offers targeted professional development, including self-paced online modules, on-site coaching and team professional development, access to more than 3,000 classroom and practitioner videos, self-assessment data that are benchmarked against competencies for effective school leadership, progress monitoring, and recommendations for additional resources.

“We know that in order to deliver sustained student achievement and schoolwide success, districts must depend upon—and cultivate—highly effective educators,” Marzano said. “[High-] quality professional development that is individualized and tied to proven strategies for team building and leadership, as seen in Principal Compass, when used well can impact performance and grow student achievement at the school and district level.”

The leadership effectiveness system in Principal Compass is fully integrated into Pearson’s Teacher Compass Suite platform, where the self-assessment and improvement data will be available in tandem with teacher observation data and online, on-demand professional development resources, the company said.

For more news from ASCD’s 67th annual conference, click here.