Professional Development in Education
EDITORIAL Issue 44.3
The articles in this issue cover a wide range of topics, from studying the effects of professional development on student achievement, to exploring aspects of teacher education programs, to the development of educational videos. While the topics, methods and outcomes are varied, there are several important themes running through the work that reflect the growing depth and sophistication of research in professional development. One theme is the use of conceptual frameworks to study teacher learning. An important way of building on previous knowledge and integrating findings into what we already know, is using established conceptual frameworks as grounding for studies. A second theme is the conceptualization and measurement of multiple outcomes. This acknowledgment that teacher learning manifests itself in multiple ways-through not only knowledge development in teachers and students, but also in social-psychological outcomes such as self-efficacy, motivation, and engagement. Establishing a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of how teacher learning may shape both teachers and their students is an important advance in our studies of PD. A third theme is the focus on implementation. This reflects the understanding that while professional development programs may be designed in ways consistent with the research, the actual experience may differ from those ideals in significant ways; and further, teachers may experience them differently. Finally, this compilation of studies employs multiple types of data collection to study implementation and effects. Using different ways of knowing to uncover consistencies and contradictions respects the complexities involved with teacher learning initiatives and the power of different data collections (surveys, interviews) to provide complementary insights into better understanding the strengths and weaknesses in efforts to support teachers.
The nine articles in this issue cover a range of important topics. In The “Look-Ahead” professional development model: A professional development model for implementing new curriculum with a focus on instructional strategies, Thomas J. Baird and Linda E. Clark describe a promising professional development model and its effects on student achievement. Using data from a mixed methods longitudinal evaluation of teachers and students across four elementary schools in one school district in Connecticut, their study serves both to describe the “Look-ahead” model of professional development, designed to assist teachers in teaching elementary school mathematics, as well as provide an examination of its effects on teachers and students. One of the study’s strengths is that its focus is twofold: it examines implementation, defined here as teacher learning and classroom implementation of discourse and reasoning strategies, as well as student learning, measured with standardized tests as well as teacher surveys. The use of multiple methods—teacher surveys, observations, and student achievement data, represent a fuller picture of the link between PD implementation and outcomes. While the authors found minimal effects on standardized tests, teachers reported increases in student risk-taking, engagement, independent and communication of reasoning.
In Measuring the impact of professional development for student-centered pedagogies: a mixed-methods study, Mark W. Olofson and Bernice R. Garnett also employ different data collections to examine the relationship between a professional development program and teachers’ classroom practice. Specifically, they study the links between participation in PD and subsequent development of student-centered practices of 53 middle grade educators from nine public and private middle schools in Vermont. Participants in the PD engaged in individualized programs built around personal action research projects. Their quantitative results show a decline in student centered practices while their qualitative data show differences in teachers’ perceptions of what the focus of the PD was, and their engagement with it. The authors conclude that the quantitative measures they use may have failed to capture the full impact of PD. This article offers insights into understanding how mixed methods can help uncover complex relationships between teacher learning, classroom implementation and student learning.
Also focusing on teacher experiences in professional development, Emma Rempe-Gillen, in her article Primary school teacher experiences in cross-phase professional development collaborations, analyses and discusses the experiences of two primary school teachers in a cross-school cross-phase collaborative year-long PD initiative. The goal of the study was to identify barriers to teacher participation in cross phase PD. The study focuses on primary school math teachers. Drawing on interviews, participant observation and documents (emails and field notes), Rempe-Gillen describes the professional growth and opportunities for experimentation and leadership that the collaboration afforded. The article describes the role that teacher self-efficacy and subject-area knowledge play in influencing teachers’ level and type of participation. Findings point to the importance of considering how individuals differ in their approach to collaboration.
In an era when technology is being integrated into all aspects of schooling, Valentina Piwowar, Victoria L. Barth, Diemut Ophardt and Felicitas Thiel’s article is especially timely. In Evidence-based scripted Videos on Handling Student Misbehavior: The Development and Evaluation of Video Cases for Teacher Education, the authors provide a comprehensive overview of a research based scripted video production process. In the article, the authors describe the ways they enhanced the internal and external validity of the video case. This article provides insight into a valuable case-based teacher learning resource – scripted videos. The authors carefully describe the video production process and provide a preliminary evaluation of its usefulness for teachers, and suggested implications for improvement. The topic of the video is misbehavior in secondary classrooms. They outline the development process, useful for others who wish to follow a tested step by step process. Further, they identify potential areas for improvement, such as effectively representing the student perspective. This article contributes to our understanding of how to develop scripted videos for use as a learning tool for teacher preservice and other applications.
Several of the articles in this issue deal with teacher pre-service education. In Ethics education in initial teacher education: Pre-service provision in England, Sue Walters, Ruth Heilbronn and Caroline Daly explore how ethics education is provided in university courses of initial teacher education in England. The data are based on interviews with ten respondents who had completed an international survey in an earlier study, and at that time had indicated they were willing to be interviewed. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, the authors explore where ethics is taught, how it is provided for within teacher training programs, the extent to which it is integrated and reasons, attitudes and understandings around ethics. The authors find that respondents had different understandings of what constitutes ethics education. They also find that ethics is embedded into the curriculum, rather than being a stand-alone course. Further, they identify barriers to providing ethics education. These barriers include student resistance due to questions about relevance, and the prioritization of other issues, which leaves little time for ethics. Anyone wishing to add or integrate an ethics component to teacher education training would find this article valuable.
In Evidence of quality professional development: a study in childhood practice, Brenda Dunn, Catriona McDonald and Dorothy Johnson examine the contribution of the BA childhood Practice work-based degree to professional and personal development. Specifically, the study examines the professional and personal development of BA childhood Practice (BACP) work-based students in Scotland. The goal was to identify commonalities of personal and professional growth which had the potential to impact practice. The authors also analyze the BA childhood practice work-based degree to see how well it corresponded to characteristics of high quality PD. Specifically, they examine how well the degree impacted values and professional commitment, knowledge and understanding and skills and abilities. This small-scale action research study uses a qualitative descriptive design with a phenomenographic approach. The data they rely on is comprised of 35 questionnaires, 12 assignments and 9 interviews. The authors find that participants in the degree reported increased confidence in their professional role. They conclude that the BACP is an example of work-based PD that supports development of higher level skills in personal and professional development including leadership skills. Participants developed skills and characteristics consistent with the theories used in the coursework, for example, critical reflection and knowledge resulted in innovative and inquiring professionals with leadership attributes from models of professional learning. The authors conclude that their study is an example that could apply to the study of other professional programs.
Also studying an aspect of teacher education are Fenna Swart, Rick de Graaff, Jeroen Onstenk and Dubravka Knezic in their article, Teacher educators’ conceptualization of ongoing language development in professional learning and teaching. The goal of this study was to understand how experienced teacher educators conceptualize ongoing language development in professional learning and teaching as part of their pedagogical content knowledge. Respondents were 29 teachers in four teacher training institutes at universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. The authors conducted a series of three Socratic dialogues with teachers of four teacher groups. They analyzed the data using content analysis. The authors studied the learning orientations of participants, for whom the learning was intended, how learning was achieved and for what purpose language was learned. They find that the focus of learning was the learning of the teacher educator and colleagues. They conclude that there is a need to integrate pedagogical content and language knowledge into teacher educators’ pedagogical repertoire to facilitate effective interaction with students about subject content.
Moving from pre-service to in-service, Marie Beresford-Day and Richard Holme, in Optional assessment submission within Master’s-level learning: teachers’ perceptions, explore the role of teacher motivation in professional learning. They do this in the context of a project in Scotland that allows teacher choice about whether or not to submit an assignment as part of a 30- credit module. The study interviewed six Master’s students who chose to submit the assignment, and several who did not. The data was analyzed using Evans conceptualized model of professionalism and PD. The study is designed to understand how students view masters level study, the factors that influence the decision to submit the assignment and how the decision to submit influenced the teachers’ learning experiences. The authors found that submission of the assignment was correlated with higher self-confidence, motivation and self-efficacy, and discuss implications for Master’s level adult learning.
In Experiential continuity: How newly qualified teachers’ past international teaching experiences influence their current personal interpretative framework, Peter Mesker, Hartger Wassink & Cok Bakker describe their two-year longitudinal study that explores how an earlier international teaching experience influences the way six newly qualified teachers perceive their current teaching practice and professional self-understanding. Using data from two in depth structured interviews, self-reflection and a monthly log, the authors conduct the study using an interpretative phenomenological approach. They focus on the concept of an experiential continuum, which suggests that every experience reflects on previous experiences and modifies later experiences. The authors highlight that these previous experiences influenced practice when teachers where interpreting (1) professional beliefs regarding teaching knowledge, (2) moral questions regarding the teacher they want to be and (3) their international teaching experience as a tool for placing new experiences in perspective. This work is useful in understanding how an experiential continuity can help teachers understand the choices they make in their induction phase and how this relates to the teacher they want to become. This study highlights the importance of cross cultural experiences in teachers’ personal interpretative framework.
Associate Editor