High-quality Professional Development Research Articles

OC 8477 MAKING RESEARCH EASIER, BETTER AND FASTER THROUGH KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND BUILDING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

BackgroundThe Global Health Network improves the health research capacity of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by facilitating know-how and knowledge exchange between organisations, disease areas, regions and roles. We show how we use the sharing phenomenon to transform and drive health research in resource-limited settings.MethodsWe harnessed cutting-edge technology that facilitates engagement of medical researchers and healthcare professionals in low-resource settings and creates opportunity for knowledge exchange and capacity development in global health. We built highly functional digital communities of practice (CoPs) that serve as learning and sharing tools for researchers, and a gateway for sharing experience about disease research. These CoPs are intertwined with regional activities such as training workshops with health care professionals, which helps to enhance engagement and impact.ResultsWe disseminate resources with collaborators to enable research in LMICs via 37 CoPs. The data derived from these CoPs is used to identify knowledge-gaps in research capacity, as well as a guide to the development of resources and tools, such as standardised outcome measures. The network has developed 25 free peer-reviewed e-learning courses covering a wide range of topics, as well as high-quality professional development tools. We highlight the WHO-TDR Professional Development Scheme that tracks and guides training and career development. The network has trained over 33 500 professionals (with >400 k courses taken) across 119 LMICs on the principles of good clinical practices ensuring the safety of research participants and the integrity and validity of research data.ConclusionThe Global Health Network is enabling research in areas where data is missing by providing tools, training, and resources whilst supporting and training research teams. The next step is to widen this impact and invite new researchers to drive and enable more and better clinical research in places and situations where evidence is still woefully lacking.

Web-Based Professional Development Model to Enhance Teaching of Strategies for Online Academic Research in Middle School

High-quality professional development is needed to prepare teachers to help students learn how to conduct online academic research and meet Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. This study created and evaluated a Web-based professional development program with five instructional modules designed to prepare middle-school teachers to teach their students nine strategies for conducting academic research online. The online professional development program was specifically created to help teachers implement the previously developed online SOAR Student Toolkit curriculum with all students in inclusive classrooms. Results of a 2015–2016 pilot study conducted with 13 teachers and 477 students in sixth to eighth grades indicated that most teachers perceived the professional development program to be of high quality and relevant in helping them teach online research skills to their students. Students significantly improved online research skills after learning from trained teachers (27 percentage points improvement, from 18% at pretest to 45% at posttest).

THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN PROMOTING UNIVERSITY TEACHERS TEACHING PROFESSION – A CASE STUDY: KING KHALID UNIVERSITY TEACHERS, COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ARTS, KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA, FORMER UNIVERSITY: SUDAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, KHARTOUM, SUDAN

The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent professional development promotes university teachers teaching profession. The researcher used the quantitative method of the research representing in interviews with university teachers at King Khalid University who is the sample of the study. The main findings of the research: firstly; high-quality professional development provides room for teachers to think outside the box and aspires for better. Secondly, teachers will interchange ideas when they collaborate in professional development sessions. Finally, professional development helps teachers’ to be creative and innovative inside classrooms. Article visualizations:

Major outcomes of an authentic astronomy research experience professional development program: An analysis of 8 years of data from a teacher research program

The NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP) partners small groups of educators with a research astronomer for a year-long authentic research project. This program aligns well with the characteristics of high-quality professional development (PD) programs and has worked with a total of 103 educators since 2005. In this paper, surveys were explored that were obtained from 74 different educators, at up to four waypoints during the course of 13 months, incorporating data from the class of 2010 through the class of 2017. This paper investigates how participating teachers describe their motivations for participating in NITARP as evidenced in these feedback forms. Analysis of self-reported data allows a mapping onto a continuum ranging from more inward-focused to more outward-focused; there is a shift from more inward-focused responses to more outward-focused responses. This insight into teacher motivations has implications for how the educators might be supported during their year with the program. This work provides a new way of parameterizing why educators participate in PD programs that require a considerable investment of time. NITARP, since it has many qualities of successful PD, serves as a model for similar PD programs in other STEM subjects. Likewise, the analysis method might also be useful to similarly evaluate other PD programs.

K-6 pre-service teachers’ emerging professional identities as social studies educators

It is vital that social studies be an integral part of the elementary (Kindergarten-6) curriculum to prepare all children to participate in increasingly diverse democracies. This study's purpose was to investigate how nine planned and implemented social studies professional development activities, outside traditional classrooms, could impact five volunteer K-6 pre-service teachers’ beliefs about their emergent professional identities as social studies educators. This case study explored research questions primarily through qualitative methods. Research implications contribute to possible solutions for (1) helping pre-service teachers understand how professional educators, outside their local areas, create and learn public scholarship to educate diverse democracies, (2) helping pre-service teachers recognize relationships between high quality professional development, networking, organization membership, and professional identity, and (3) sense of belonging as one treatment for U.S. novice teacher attrition rates.

Investigating relationships between school context, teacher professional development, teaching practices, and student achievement in response to a nationwide science reform

Situated in the context of the Advanced Placement curriculum reform in the sciences, this quantitative study validates selected elements of Desimone's (2009) conceptual framework on teacher professional development. Using national data sets with data from 133 336 students and 7434 teachers, multi-level structural equation models indicate that professional development participation and contextual school- and teacher-level factors influence teachers' classroom practices. In turn, aspects of instructional enactments characteristics are significantly, but very weakly, associated with student performance. Thus, this study reinforces calls to provide teachers opportunities for high-quality professional development and suggests to advance research that identifies effective instructional practices.

Effects of Scaled-up Professional Development Courses About Inquiry-Based Learning on Teachers

Although well researched in educational studies, inquiry-based learning, a student-centred way of teaching, is far away from being implemented in day-to-day science and mathematics teaching on a large scale. It is a challenge for teachers to adopt this new way of teaching in an often not supportive school context. Therefore it is important to provide high-quality professional development (PD) at a large scale. However, there is little empirical evidence about the effects of scaled-up professional development initiatives. Therefore, this paper presents an international research study for which long-term PD courses have been designed. These courses have been implemented across Europe in twelve different countries at scale by using the so-called “Cascade Model”. Here, course leaders are educated, who in turn educate other teachers. The research study aimed at evaluating the overall impact the scaled-up PD had on teachers and at also identifying variables influencing this impact.

Adapting to large-scale changes in Advanced Placement Biology, Chemistry, and Physics: the impact of online teacher communities

ABSTRACTOver the past decade, the field of teacher professional learning has coalesced around core characteristics of high quality professional development experiences (e.g. Borko, Jacobs, & Koellner, 2010. Contemporary approaches to teacher professional development. In P. L. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGaw (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (Vol. 7, pp. 548–556). Oxford: Elsevier.; Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017. Effective teacher professional development. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute). Many countries have found these advances of great interest because of a desire to build teacher capacity in science education and across the full curriculum. This paper continues this progress by examining the role and impact of an online professional development community within the top-down, large-scale curriculum and assessment revision of Advanced Placement (AP) Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. This paper is part of a five-year, longitudinal, U.S. National Science Foundation–funded project to study the relative effectiveness of various types of professional development in enabling teachers to adapt to the revised AP course goals and exams. Of the many forms of professional development our research has examined, preliminary analyses indicated that participation in the College Board's online AP Teacher Community (APTC) – where teachers can discuss teaching strategies, share resources, and connect with each other – had positive, direct, and statistically significant association with teacher self-reported shifts in practice and with gains in student AP scores (Fishman et al., 2014). This study explored how usage of the online APTC might be useful to teachers and examined a more robust estimate of these effects. Findings from the experience of AP teachers may be valuable in supporting other large-scale curriculum changes, such as the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards or Common Core Standards, as well as parallel curricular shifts in other countries.

Journey of science teacher education in Singapore: past, present and future

Singapore students boast stellar performance at international benchmarking studies such as PISA and TIMSS. One of the major contributors to the consistently good performance in mathematics and science is the quality of our science teacher education in Singapore. Through a consistent, systematic and continuous system, there is a seamless transition of pre-service teacher education to continuing professional development of science teachers in Singapore. This pathway of science teacher education is important as it enables science teachers to be kept abreast of changing educational innovations. Quality of science teachers is ensured from the first step of recruitment. Prospective teachers undergo a stringent selection process before they are admitted to the National Institute of Education for their pre-service education. Factors such as strong governmental support, resource availability, high quality professional development opportunities that are responsive to changes in educational landscape, and presence of a structure to allow planning and tracking of professional development trajectory ensures quality professional development. As such, science teacher education in Singapore is a compact model that is responsive yet stable, flexible yet structured, bespoke yet inclusive, varied yet focused, and specialized yet accessible. This paper will discuss science teacher education and professional development in the light of the larger Singaporean education landscape. It will also present challenges and way ahead for science teacher education and professional development in Singapore.

Effective teacher professional development in the process of major school reforms

This small-scale qualitative study explores the elements that influence effective teacher professional development in Kosovo by examining the perceptions of a selected group of teachers in relation to their experiences of professional development. The study applied a qualitative, multiple case study approach, drawing on the experiences of four teachers who have participated in professional development activities and who have been part of the professional development process that has supported curriculum implementation reform in Kosovo. Findings from the study focus on delivery and quality of training; implementation of the new learning and skills; and institutional support at school level and beyond. The study concludes that there is an on-going need for high-quality professional development; that an understanding of effective adult learning is essential to influence professional growth; and that TPD will be effective only if it is supported by the context in which it is delivered.

Collaborative Design as Mediated Praxis: Professional Development for Socially Just Pedagogies

In this study, we examine a multiyear professional development program designed to help English teachers incorporate connected learning into their classrooms. We propose a model of professional learning we term collaborative design as mediated praxis, which refines and extends the five features of high-quality professional development and takes into account a focus on social justice and equity. A variety of data were collected for the study including recordings of planning meetings, teachers’ reflections, and teachers’ unit plans. Analysis focused specifically on rich points (Agar, 2000) that occurred during the workshop and follow-up meetings, revealing tensions between university- and school-based educators as they engaged in the collaborative design process.

Critical features of professional development programs: Comparing content focus and impact of two large-scale programs

By comparing two large-scale professional development programs' content and impact on student achievement, we contribute to research on critical features of high quality professional development, especially content focus. Even though the programs are conducted in the same context and are highly similar if characterized according to established research frameworks, our results suggest that they differ in their impact on student achievement. We therefore develop an analytical framework that allow us to characterize the programs’ content and delivery in detail. Through this approach, we identify important differences between the programs that provide explanatory value in discussing reasons for their differing impacts.

Managing pupil behaviour

SecEd's supply teaching series continues. This week, we offer advice on accessing high-quality professional development as a supply teacher, as well as some behaviour management guidance for those constantly working with new classes from school to school

Does high-quality professional development make a difference? Evidence from TIMSS

While professional development has been emphasised in many countries, few comparative studies have examined the degree of teachers’ participation in professional development and its effect on teachers. Using the TIMSS 2007 data, this study analyses to what extent teachers participated in professional development in 50 TIMSS countries and examines the relationship among high-quality teachers’ professional development, teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and job satisfaction. The study found that the extent to which teachers have participated in professional developmental activities was surprisingly low. In particular, teachers in 47 countries have rarely participated in active learning. The study also found that high-quality teacher professional development was significantly associated with greater job satisfaction, higher expectations for student performance and more positive attitudes in teachers concerning their implementing the school’s curriculum. Policy implications for professional development are discussed.

The Essence and Structure of History and Legal Studies Teacher’s Competency: Analysis of Ukrainian and Foreign Scholars’ Approaches

Abstract For a teacher to be professionally successful, they should possess relevant competencies. A history and legal studies teacher’s competency as an integrated entity has not been the subject of scientific researches yet. The paper aims to analyze legal documents as well as scientific literature, generalize and systematize the approaches to understanding the essence and structure of teacher’s professional competency. It is considered as a set of specific competencies; a component of teacher’s competency; one of its two main competencies. These approaches do not contribute to understanding teacher’s competency as a holistic integrated formation; competencies, which are singled out along with teacher’s professional competency and should be considered as its organic components. The structure of teacher’s competency based on the positions of functional approach is described as a set of components, namely, knowledge of psychology and pedagogy, abilities, skills, emotions, internal motivation, attitudes, moral and ethical values, experience; gnostic, constructive, organizational, communicative, analytical, creative, predictive, projective, informational, pedagogical skills, etc. The teacher’s competency is denoted by different terms. Its essence is fully revealed by the term “professional and pedagogical competency”, which allows describing teacher’s competency as a holistic personal entity belonging to a particular professional teacher, comprehensively characterizing it and serves as a means of achieving pedagogical goals and solving pedagogical tasks, a criterion for a professional teacher’s development. Despite certain differences in understanding the essence and the vision of teacher’s competency structure, almost all researchers of this problem agree on the fact that the factors of developing a highly competent teacher are high-quality pedagogical education, professional training and lifelong professional development. Rather perspective are further studies on specification of the volume and the content of knowledge, skills and abilities, the values of history and legal studies teachers as components of their competency, as well as experimental confirmation of relevant theoretical positions.

Teacher Professional Development: International Perspectives and Approaches

Nations around the world are currently embarked in deep reforms of their education systems. There is widespread agreement among policymakers, scholars, and educators that one of the keys for success during these reforms is promoting the professional development (PD) of in-service teachers. Every year, governments invest astronomical amounts of money on teacher continuous learning. However, the literature shows that much of the PD offered to teachers is inefficient, having small or no effect on teaching practices and/or student learning. This monograph describes the perspectives and approaches to teacher PD of five nations heavily committed to research and/or practice in this field. Understanding how PD is structured in these nations may guide others in designing more favorable learning opportunities for their teachers. The article from United States provides a general framework regarding the features of high-quality PD and offers examples of recent effective initiatives. The four following articles describe the PD models of Australia, Hong Kong, Finland, and Singapore, among the highest-achievers in education presently. Because teacher continuous learning is a high priority in these nations, strong infrastructures for high-quality PD have been built to meet teachers’ needs and interests. The monograph closes with a contribution from Spain, the country where the journal Psychology, Society and Education is edited. The author discusses the five prior articles and reflects on how the ideas presented could improve the PD currently offered to teachers in other nations, particularly Spain.

Comparative Analysis of Participation of Teachers of STEM and Non-STEM Subjects in Professional Development

School administrators continuously consider teacher professional development (PD) as one of the key strategies to improving teachers’ pedagogical skills. Modern proposals for advancing education by improving student learning outcomes are centered on high quality professional development for teachers. However, teachers face a number of barriers when it comes to participation in PD. Also, students in K-12 levels taking Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM subjects often report different learning experiences, most of which influence their decisions to enroll in STEM or non-STEM career-related programs in higher education. Understanding factors that influence the differential in teacher participation in PD is a critical step towards addressing student interest in STEM careers. Using the cross-sectional survey data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey of 2013, this study compared the participation of middle school STEM and non-STEM teachers in PD activities in the US. A bivariate analysis was used to compare STEM subject teachers versus non-STEM subject teachers’ participation in PD activities, its impact, and challenges. The findings showed that PD participation was higher among teachers of STEM subjects, but not significantly different from those for non-STEM subjects. Out-field teaching (no formal training of subject taught) accounted for 10.3% of the survey participants. Further, conflict with one’s work schedule was one of the major barriers to PD participation for teachers.

Measuring the impact of professional development for student-centred pedagogies: a mixed-methods study

Shifts towards student-centred pedagogies require high-quality professional development to support teacher learning. Although many characteristics of effective professional development have been identified, such programmes still struggle to demonstrate successful results. This mixed-methods study investigated the development of student-centred practices in middle-school teachers in the USA in response to a programme of professional development. Participants engaged in individualized programmes of professional development built around personal action research projects. Quantitative results showed a significant decline in student-centred practices, and explanatory qualitative data indicated differences in the perception of the focus of the professional development and engagement with dissemination. Mixed analyses indicated previously unobserved similarities across participants, highlighting the difficulty of measuring the impact of professional development using only quantitative or qualitative approaches. The impact of this professional development and implications for the study of similar programmes are discussed.

Teachers’ professional development for differentiated instruction in mixed-ability classrooms: investigating the impact of a development program on teachers’ professional learning and on students’ achievement

The present article reports the results of a study performed to investigate and examine the characteristics of a teachers’ professional development program (Teachers’ Professional Development Program for Differentiated Instruction [PDD]) specially designed to support teachers in the design and application of differentiated instruction. Considering the characteristics of high-quality professional development programs (i.e. active learning, collective participation, closely related to the curriculum and the existing teaching realities, sufficient duration and continuance), the PDD aimed to facilitate change in both attitudes and practices of the participants. The study provides evidence of the success of the program, both in terms of teacher professional development and student achievement, and discusses the elements that made this program successful.

Development of innovational strategies for physical, health and sports education

In this paper, innovation is seen as a driver of growth and wellbeing. New technologies, products, services and organizations create jobs and rejuvenate industries. This also presents new opportunities for innovation and improvement in education systems. The paper, therefore, delved into some strategies for education innovation. It was explained that schools need to become places where diverse talents are recognized and nurtured and every student made to feel special. This will give each student opportunity to realize their full potential and succeed on their own terms. Again, innovative education brings about personality development since the creative capacity of students also manifest. Another strategy is that higher education must be developed to adapt and transform the status and ability of students to create the future. The paper further looked into some new strategies for physical education and sport. It was explained that since sports education is for all students, assessment should be a variety of sports and three-dimensional. In addition, the use and operation of multimedia design reflects the innovative aspect with the development of technology in physical education. Another new strategy is that physical educators must be engaged in high quality and sustainable professional development. This can be achieved through developing dynamic and high standard physical education programme that will consider content knowledge, instructional strategies and methods to create an individualized learning environment that meets the needs of your diverse student population. Another section in the paper looked at the teaching method and innovation of physical education. To enhance the implementation of innovative education, the people-centered education must make way for student-centered, teacher-led education which gives full play to the initiative of students. There is also the need to enhance students’ physique by exploring the teaching methods that will affect the students learning enthusiasm and initiative. The paper touched on the personalized sports teaching methods. Here, emphasis was placed on the fact that teaching method design should be changed from “teaching” to “learning method” and the teaching methods changed from “Professor” to “guide”. Some recommendations were made for the experts and appropriate stakeholders to take actions.