Professionalizing teachers through a co-design learning framework

ABSTRACT

Teachers are rarely included as partners in school reforms or in planning teacher supports to enact new initiatives. The authors explored co-design as a professional learning (PL) framework to support localized enactment of a high school language arts project-based learning (PBL) course. They examined aspects that facilitated or limited progress toward PBL goals within the co-design PL. Results suggest that productive PL requires teachers to be positioned as key members from the onset who feel they have agency in adapting and enacting curriculum. When teachers are not part of the decision-making, it is difficult to agree on the focus and invest in the shared work. Co-design facilitated the professionalization of teachers when teachers had agency, partners developed trust through vulnerability, and partners experienced small successes together. The authors share the Partnership Planning Tool that can be used to identify the complex interplay between partners to support positive change.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional learning
• project-based learning
• co-design
• teacher agency
• partnership

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. All names are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the George Lucas Educational Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Ashley Seidel Potvin

Ashley Seidel Potvin, PhD, is a Research Associate in the Renée Crown Wellness Institute at University of Colorado Boulder. She designs, studies, and teaches programs focused on supporting educators to cultivate compassion for themselves and others, to deepen their leadership capacities, and to work towards just and compassionate schools. Through qualitative methods she examines educator learning and wellness, teacher–student relationships, and the development of caring, inclusive, and humanizing classroom and research environments.

Alison G. Boardman

Alison Gould Boardman, PhD is an Associate Professor in Equity, Bilingualism, & Biliteracy in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. She works closely with educators to study and innovate literacy instruction across content areas in classrooms that include multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Current investigations include examining the sustainability of project-based learning over time and developing supports for students with disabilities in PBL classrooms.

Karla Scornavacco

Karla Scornavacco, PhD, is Director of Field Experiences at the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she partners with districts to design systems and supports for welcoming and supporting new teachers in the profession.