Who Are QualityCore^® Professional Development Facilitators?

They are master educators; some retired, others still practicing. They come from across the United States. All are believers in QualityCore.

They are people like Tony VanderZyl, who is a retired teacher and a math facilitator for QualityCore professional development. He taught for 38 years and was a district math coordinator and trainer of other teachers. He holds a National Board Certification and a PhD in education, and has trained teachers as a consultant for ACT, for the state school board association, and independently.

“I have for decades been dedicated to increasing the rigor and relevance of mathematics teaching and see QualityCore as a vehicle to that end,” he said.

He enjoys seeing practicing teachers come to believe in QualityCore. At a recent professional development session, he recalls a teacher who, through tears, explained how a QualityCore model instructional unit had transformed him from a “stand and deliver” teacher to a facilitator of rigorous student learning.

Chimille Dillard

The rigor and relevance philosophy is also what drove Chimille Dillard, a science teacher at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Flossmoor, a Chicago suburb, to become a QualityCore facilitator.

“QualityCore constantly challenges teachers to become better and to enhance the rigor and relevance of our courses,” she said. “The professional development component inspires teachers to be reflective and to collaborate with their colleagues.”

ACT’s Classroom Connections staff train the master educators to guide teachers and administrators through a series of modules that help them:

• Define rigor and relevance
• Understand depth of knowledge and cognitive demand
• Analyze ACT course standards
• Explore the Educator’s Toolbox
• Develop high-quality assignments
• Use constructed-response items to increase course rigor
• Implement model instructional units
• Create a course syllabus
• Use QualityCore Educator Resources in instruction
• Examine student work for rigor
• Incorporate scaffolding into a lesson
• Structure assessments to match instruction
• Revise lessons for rigor and relevance
• Identify next steps and prepare for the end-of-course assessment