National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2015). Science Teachers Learning: Enhancing Opportunities, Creating Supportive Contexts. Committee on Strengthening Science Education through a Teacher Learning Continuum. Board on Science Education and Teacher Advisory Council, Division of Behavioral and Social Science and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. [Read Summary, Chapters 6 & 9; also recommended: Chapter 8]
- “A Nation at Risk” – book
- Warned of the risks of neglecting improvements in the quality of teaching in public schools
- Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) was a response to the book
- Teachers are the ones who will deliver these new standards
- Conclusions
- Will require teachers to alter the way they teach
- Teachers do not have adequate CK
- Teacher PD is selected and opted-in by individual teachers
- Teachers need better preparation
- Differentiation
- CK
- PCK
- PD programs features
- Analysis of own practice and student work
- Content focused
- Alignment with district policies and practices
- Duration
- Online PD is effective
- Learning occurs within and outside of school
- PD
- Learning communities
- Coaching
- etc…
- Schools need to be supportive of PD
- PD must be contextualized
- Administration’s support is central to advance learning
- Teacher leaders – support and train new
- Closing the gap – must attend to teacher’s different learning needs
- US lacks a coherent and well-articulated system for PD
- Recommendations for Practice and Policy
- Understand what are the current teacher learning opportunities
- Support teacher PD within own context
- PD outside of school and embedded in the work day
- Use research-based PD
- Clear learning goals for teachers
- Content specific
- Student specific
- Link to classroom instruction analysis
- Interact with peers
- Analyze data on student’s learning
- Opportunities for collaboration
- Develop internal capacity & partner with external expertise
- Revise policies to encourage teacher learning opportunities
- Explore new formats and media for teacher learning
- Chapter 6 – Professional Development Programs
- Definition
- Purposefully designed to support particular kinds of teacher change
- Include a focused, multi day session for teachers that takes place outside of the teacher’s classroom or school
- May include follow-up opportunities over the school year
- Have a finite duration (although they can take place over a period of 2 to 3 years)
- Several PD opportunities in catalogue (over 1000 in 1 year)
- Disjointed and incoherent
- Core features of research-based PD
- Focus on content
- Subject matter content
- How students learn that content
- Active learning
- Observing expert teachers
- Reviewing student work
- Leading discussions
- Coherence with learning activities
- Aligned with other learning opportunities
- Aligned with school, district, and state policies
- Focus on content
- Structural features of research-based PD
- Form of the activity
- Collective participation of teachers from the same school, grade, or subject
- Duration of the activity
- Total number of hours
- Span of time
- Summary
- PD can lead to sustainable changes in teacher’s knowledge and beliefs and their instruction
- Little research that links directly to student outcomes – but seems to work
- More to add to the consensus model
- Content learning is intertwined with pedagogical activities such as analysis of practice. (Heller et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2011).
- Analysis of student learning – artifacts of practice: student work and lesson videos (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Heller et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2011)
- Focus on teaching strategies (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Johnson and Fargo, 2010; Penuel et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
- Reflect on and grapple with challenges to their current practice (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Johnson and Fargo, 2010; Penuel et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
- Scaffolded by knowledgeable professional development leaders (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Heller et al., 2012; Penuel et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
- Analytical tools support collaborative, focused, and deep analysis of science teaching, student learning, and science content (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
- Must have better designed PD research
- Research Design
- “Few studies used strong research designs incorporating pre-post measures of both sets of outcomes shown in Figure 6-1 (teachers’ knowledge and instruction and students’ learning) and a control or comparison group.”
- Research Scope and missing data
- No studies look at schools organization and context
- No studies look at role and expertise of PD providers and facilitators
- Research Design
- Online Programs
- Explosion of PD programs offered in this media
- Still little research on it – early stages
- Most programs use social constructivist approach
- Problem-based learning
- Inquiry-based learning
- Mentoring
- Communities of Practice
- Most research is Qualitative – need more Quantitative?
- Still need expert guidance and facilitation – open discussion forum is not enough (same as face-to-face efforts)
- Teachers are more reflective online than on face-to-face
- Technocentricity – online is not enough – has to be well designed in the first place
- Conclusions
- Evidence is still not very robust
- Few studies employ control or comparison groups
- Most studies look at 1 study, in 1 location, with few volunteer teachers
- Definition
- Chapter 9 – Conclusions, Recommendations, and Directions for Research
- Need better designed PD
- Need better policies and practices in schools
- Need support from Administrators
- Recommendations for Research
- Create system to collect data on
- Current workforce
- Qualifications
- Experience
- Preparation
- General trends and consensus of best-practices
- PD opportunities
- Current workforce
- Improve research methods
- Include more quantitative data
- Use control or comparison groups
- More research on
- Professional learning communities
- Mentoring
- Coaching
- Online Learning
- Teacher Networks
- Teacher evaluation
- School Organization
- School Context
- Principal and Leaders influence in PD
- Formal Recommendations
- 1: Focus Research on Linking Professional Learning to Changes in Instructional Practice and Student Learning
- 2: Invest in Improving Measures of Science Instruction and Science Learning
- 3: Design and Implement Research That Examines a Variety of Approaches to Supporting Science Teachers’ Learning
- 4: Commit to Focusing on Meeting the Needs of Diverse Science Learners Across All Research on Professional Development
- 5: Focus Research on Exploring the Potential Role of Technology
- 6: Design and Implement Research Focused on the Learning Needs of Teacher Leaders and Professional Development Providers
- Create system to collect data on
The New Teaching Project (2015). The Mirage: Confronting the hard truth about our quest for teacher development. New York: TNTP. [Read through the Recommendations; no need to read appendices.]
- Findings (“In short, we bombard teachers with help, but most of it is not helpful—to teachers as professionals or to schools seeking better instruction.)
- Districts are making a massive investment in teacher improvement—far larger than most people realize.
- Despite these efforts, most teachers do not appear to improve substantially from year to year—even though many have not yet mastered critical skills
- Even when teachers do improve, we were unable to link their growth to any particular development strategy.
- School systems are not helping teachers understand how to improve—or even that they have room to improve at all.
- Recommendations
- REDEFINE what it means to help teachers improve
- Define “development” clearly, as observable, measurable progress toward an ambitious standard for teaching and student learning.
- Give teachers a clear, deep understanding of their own performance and progress.
- Encourage improvement with meaningful rewards and consequences.
- REEVALUATE existing professional learning supports and programs
- Inventory current development efforts.
- Start evaluating the effectiveness of all development activities against the new definition of “development.”
- Explore and test alternative approaches to development.
- Reallocate funding for particular activities based on their impact.
- REINVENT how we support effective teaching at scale
- Balance investments in development with investments in recruitment, compensation and smart retention.
- Reconstruct the teacher’s job.
- Redesign schools to extend the reach of great teachers.
- Reimagine how we train and certify teachers for the job.
- REDEFINE what it means to help teachers improve
Hill, H.C. (2015). Review of The Mirage: Confronting the hard truth about our quest for teacher development. Boulder, CO. National Education Policy Center.
- “… public districts invest heavily in teacher professional development, what is offered is often a poor fit to teacher needs and ultimately ineffective as a means to improving teacher evaluation scores.”
- “… mis-match between the behaviors rewarded by teacher evaluation and the professional development features…”
Story 2: Fired, Hired, and Inspired by Kathleen Aldred
- The story of “Mr.Z”, a ‘late-hire’ who missed the PD and involvement with the the New Teacher Institute
- Rowdy students would not respond to his instructions
- Previously a chef – received no teacher training
- “Do now” strategy to quiet students down – shook hands of all incoming students
- Teacher evaluation went bad
- Fired
- Re-hired by a more ‘progressive’ school