Little, J.W. (2004). ‘Looking at student work’ in the United States: a case of competing impulses in professional development. In C. Day & J. Sachs (Eds.) International Handbook on the Continuing Professional Development of Teachers (pp. 94-118). UK: Open University Press.

• Looking at student work
  • Root teacher learning in and from practice
    • Deep understanding of how children learn
  • External control of teaching and teacher education
    • Standards
    • Controlling practice
    • Exercising sanctions
  • More attention to
    • School reform
    • Public accountability
• Contradictory purposes
  • Stimulating and supporting teacher learning
  • Instructional decision making
  • Bolstering teacher community
  • Advancing whole-school reform
  • Satisfying demands for public accountability
• Learning in and from practice
  • Not as many as we would wish for
• Escalating accountability pressures
• Looking at student work: profiles of purpose and practice
  • Principal rational for looking at student work
  • Programmatic choices
  • Purposes
    • Deepen teacher knowledge
    • Strengthen teacher’s instructional practice in specific subject domains
    • Collective capacity for improvement in teaching and learning at the school level
    • Review of student work in the service of standards implementation and external accountability
• Student work as a resource for deepening teacher knowledge
• Student work as a catalyst for professional community and school reform
• Student work as an instrument of external accountability
• Multiple purposes – complementary or competing?
  • Tension
    • Teacher-defined inquiry and compliance with external standards
    • Research-based model and honoring teachers’ own interests and expertise
• Teacher PD has many purposes, but hard to do them all in one
  • Depth of understanding in particular subject domains
  • Professional norms of mutual support and critique
  • Expectations for both internal and external accountability regarding students’ opportunity to learn
• Teacher PD must account for local resources and knowledge to promote teacher community at the school site
• Audit society
  • Leaves no room for experimentation
  • Teachers have little opportunity to reflect
  • No support from cohort
• Contributions and limitations of research
  • ‘Value added’: contribution to teacher knowledge and practice
    • Triangle studies
      • Teacher development
      • Classroom practice
      • Student learning
    • Instructional triangle
      • Teacher
      • Student
      • Curriculum
  • Moderation
    • Make sure scores are being interpreted in the same way by all
  • Limited scope of research, expanding the scope of practice
    • “The result: a growing arena of practice that remains weakly positioned to capitalize on research, and research weakly attentive to expanding contexts of practice.” Little, 2004)

Little, J.W., Gearhart, M., Curry, M., & Kafka, J. (2003). Looking at student work for teacher learning, teacher community, and school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 85, 185-192.

• Looking at student work usually occurs in isolation
• Common elements of practice
  • Bringing teachers together to focus on student learning and teaching practice
  • Getting student work on the he table and into the conversation
  • Structuring the conversation
• What seems to work
  • Flexible, creative use of tools for local purposes
  • Ability to exploit subject expertise and examine subject issues
  • A balance between comfort and challenge
  • Facilitation to build a group and deepen a conversation
• Three Dilemmas in making the most of looking at student work
  • Concern for personal comfort and collegial relationships
  • Scarce time, many interests
  • Uncertainty about what to highlight in “looking at student work”

Science Readings

Roth, K.J., Taylor, J.A., Wilson,C. D. & Landes, N.M. (April, 2013). Scale-up study of a videocase-based lesson analysis PD program: Teacher and student science content learning. Paper presented at the 2013 NARST Annual International Conference, Puerto Rico.

• The Problem: Science Content Knowledge for Elementary Teachers
  • “Content knowledge is insufficient to identify and address children’s misunderstandings (Roth, Anderson, & Smith, 1987); in fact, teachers sometimes hold the same misconceptions as their students.” (Roth, Taylor, Wilson, & Landes,  2013).
  • Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA)
    • Look at videos of practice
    • Student Thinking Lens
      • Strategies to reveal, support, and challenge student thinking
        • Ask questions to elicit student ideas and predictions
        • Ask questions to probe student ideas and predictions
        • Ask questions to challenge student thinking
        • Engage students in interpreting and reasoning about data and observations
        • Engage students in using and applying new science ideas in a variety of ways and contexts
        • Engage students in making connections by synthesizing and summarizing key science ideas
        • Engage students in communicating in scientific ways
    • Science Content Storyline Lens
      • Identify one main learning goal
      • Set the purpose with a focus question and/or goal statement
      • Select activities that are matched to the learning goal
      • Select content representations matched to the learning goal and engage students in their use
      • Sequence key science ideas and activities appropriately
      • Make explicit links between science ideas and activities
      • Link science ideas to other science ideas
      • Highlight key science ideas and focus question throughout
      • Summarize key science ideas

Roth, K. et al (in press). The Effect of an Analysis-of-Practice, Videocase-Based, Teacher Professional Development Program on Elementary Students’ Science Achievement. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness.

• Few rigorous studies about the relation of PD and student outcomes
  • “…few studies have tested causal relationships between teacher PD programs and student outcomes (Roth et al., 2011; Yoon, Duncan, Lee, Scarloss, & Shapley, 2007; Sleeter, 2014) and even fewer have used rigorous research designs.” (Roth, 2016, p.1)
• Elementary teachers have little science content knowledge
  • “These problems are especially prevalent for elementary teachers who have little training in science-specific pedagogy or in the science disciplines they are expected to teach (Dorph et al., 2007, 2011; Fulp, 2002; Smith & Neale, 1989; Stoddart, Connell, Stofflett, & Peck, 1993).” (Roth, 2016, p.2)
• Growing consensus that professional development should:
  • Engage teachers actively in collaborative analyses of their practice;
  • Treat content as central and intertwined with pedagogical issues;
  • Enable teachers to see these issues as embedded in real classroom contexts;
  • Focus on the content and curriculum teachers are teaching;
  • Be guided by an articulated model of teacher learning that specifies what knowledge and skills teachers will gain, what activities will lead to this learning and how this new knowledge and skills will appear in their teaching practices (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 1999; Desimone, 2009; Elmore, 2002; Garet et al., 2001; Guskey & Yoon, 2009; Hawley & Valli, 2006).
• STeLLA’s shortcomings
  • Internal validity – control group was the same group of teachers one year before
  • External validity – samples drawn from urban schools in a single geographic region
  • Scalability – program developers delivered the PD – how would a PD facilitator have implemented it?
• STeLLA suggested improvements
  • Random assignment of schools in the study to the program or a comparison condition;
  • The inclusion of a diverse sample of schools in the study;
  • A specified comparison condition that matched the treatment condition in duration, intensity, and contact hour
  • A treatment delivered entirely by PD providers who were not developers of STeLLA.