Compliance or Adaptation: What is the Real Message about Research-Based Practices?

Abstract

It's not whether teachers should use research-based practices, Mr. Duffy and Ms. Kear point out. Of course they should. The real question is whether teachers should feel free to adapt practices they learn rather than comply strictly with expert guidance. ********** UPON LEARNING that National Reading Panel recommended certain research-based practices, (1) a school district hired an expert to tell its teachers about those practices in a half-day professional development session. It then forced teachers to comply by basing their year-end evaluations on whether they used recommended practices. Does this sound familiar? It should, because this scenario is not unusual. School districts arrange for these inservice sessions because they assume that test scores will rise if teachers use research-based practices and because influential educators such as Edward Kame'enui promote this use of professional development as the logic model. (2) However, we argue that this model may send a counterproductive message to teachers. FIGURING OUT WHAT COUNTS Professional development is like any other form of teaching, in that learners always figure out what teacher really wants. For instance, elementary students figure out what counts in classrooms by noting what teachers value. (3) If teachers value accurate completion of worksheets and tests, students learn to be good at doing worksheets and tests; if teachers value inquiry or problem solving, students learn to be good at inquiry or problem solving. The teacher need not state what counts; students construct understanding for themselves by noting what teacher values. The same thing happens with teachers during professional development. Teachers figure out what counts by noting what inservice speaker values. If speaker values rigid implementation of research-based practices, teachers feel they should comply; if speaker values adjusting research-based practices to students and situations, teachers feel they should be adaptive. The speaker need not state what counts; teachers construct understanding for themselves by noting what staff developer values. So issue is not whether teachers should use research-based practices. Of course they should. The issue is underlying message we send. Do teachers conclude they should be adaptive? Or do they conclude they should comply? WHAT DO THE MOST EFFECTIVE TEACHERS DO? The goal of professional development is to help teachers be more effective. Early research on what helps teachers be effective emphasized time management and direct teaching, (4) but recent research establishes that effective teachers are also adaptive. (5) That is, in addition to being organized, efficient, and direct, effective teachers modify their practices as situations change. John Bransford and his colleagues call this adaptive expertise, and it is what Catherine Snow and her colleagues presumably admire when they say that best teachers craft a special mix of instructional ingredients for every child. (6) Developing effectiveness of this kind requires more than just telling teachers about research-based practices. It also requires that teachers understand that they must assume executive control of those practices. That is, when needs of particular students or particular instructional situations require it, teachers must take charge, modifying practices to make them fit. Research on teaching provides many examples of adaptation, but two suffice here. First, research shows that effective teachers adapt information from experts when they feel it is necessary. In one study, for instance, highly effective teachers were distinguished from less-effective teachers by their insistence on modifying researchers' recommendations when, in their judgment, research findings did not quite fit their classroom situations. (7) Similarly, effective teachers often adapt recommendations in teacher's guides and sometimes even invent new activities or projects. …