Professional Learning Project Research Articles

Enabling collaborative lesson research

AbstractIn this paper, we interrogate and justify the design of a local project that used collaborative design research in a secondary school in England. As authors, we represent teachers and teacher educators engaged in design research, whereby we acknowledge the difficulties implicit to university and school collaborations within a performative culture. Our analysis recognises the struggle for research‐informed professional judgement in the decision‐making and actions of educators that are situated in schools. A professional learning project is analysed to position teachers and teacher educators as practitioner researchers. In this respect, Stenhouse's work provides an analytical framework that is both a lens through which to interpret the nature of collaborations, as well as a methodology that allows us to understand the way in which we navigate the gap between educators' aspirations and the curriculum design and teaching within the project. The collaborative design research project was stimulated by an aspiration to make trigonometry accessible to low prior attaining pupils in a secondary mathematics classroom. This provides a stimulus for understanding the conditions that enable collaborative lesson inquiry and to question whether it can provoke raised aspirations for young people in inclusive classrooms. This allows us to understand the work of teachers as researchers and research users in an increasingly messy teacher education context. We interrogate the potentially problematic connection between research and practice within collaborative inquiry, as we understand how we enable research that is “held accountable for its relevance to practice” because “that relevance can only be validated by practitioners” (Stenhouse, 1988, p. 49).

Pseudo-compliance or convergence?

Abstract This paper reports on a professional learning (PL) project conducted over one year at a senior secondary school in New Zealand. Subject teachers volunteered to work with one another and a facilitator to identify the linguistic demands of their subjects, adapt teaching materials, and try out teaching approaches congruent with research evidence about teaching emergent bilingual (EB) learners. This paper explores cases of subject-specific partnerships and how participants’ responses to the PL appeared to impact their existing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The PL sessions were facilitated through audio-recorded Zoom meetings. A thematic analysis was conducted, and the findings were analysed using an adaptation of Davison’s (2006) framework to map how participants engaged with the PL and collaborated with one another on new pedagogies. The study suggests that these teachers accommodated linguistic teaching approaches, but their adaptation to language PCK may have remained at a compliant level.

A Whole School Agreement: Professional Learning with a Focus on Environmental STEM

ABSTRACT Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is important to producing students prepared for problem solving, critical analysis, and collaborative approaches to address the needs of the 21st century. For meaningful and intentional STEM instruction to occur, teachers need support and professional development. This paper presents a case study of a year-long professional learning project connecting the school’s environmental science focus to improving mathematics instruction. A whole school agreement bounds this particular case. The school faculty initiated the project and included developing a mathematics trail to connect with their nature trail, garden, and an outdoor amphitheater. The quantitative and qualitative data reveal significant changes in mathematics practices and teachers’ beliefs about the teaching and learning of mathematics. Since this case study revealed that whole school professional development in STEM could improve the teaching and learning of mathematics, implications for practice and research are discussed.

Teacher subjectivities and multiplicities of enactment: Agential realism and the case of science teacher learning and practice with multilingual Latinx students

ABSTRACT The case of two middle school science teachers engaged in a long-term professional learning project is used to complicate the story of teacher change and agency and the presumed relationships between teacher knowledge and practice. Becky and Kelly were highly participatory in all aspects of a multi-year professional learning project, yet, when observed in their classrooms, they did not seem to enact project practices in robust ways during their instruction. Framed through the dominant professional development literature, our project would seem to be a ‘failure’ at promoting teacher change. However, using a post-qualitative framing of our ethnographic fieldwork, an alternative storyline emerges, involving the intricate negotiations of power dynamics, competing discourses, assemblages of multiple entities and relations that Becky and Kelly navigated. These complex assemblages shaped the teachers’ understandings of their multilingual Latinx students as science learners in ways that often ran contrary to what they learned during the project professional development. In this retelling, drawing on the notion of agential realism, we show how teachers’ knowledge and subjectivities were dynamically reconfigured in relation to local sociopolitical, material, and discursive assemblages shaping their practices in what we have framed elsewhere as multiplicities of enactment.

Finding passion and purpose in the teaching of reading in secondary school English through critical readings of practice: A huge kind of spider web

We argue in this paper that the experience of reading is an intricate and dynamic weaving of connections much like the tentative construction of a spider’s web. We also use the metaphor of the web to examine a professional learning experience for Australian secondary school English teachers who over the course of a year, and by working in Communities of Practice, find and renew passion and purpose in their teaching of reading. The professional learning project, beginning in 2015, is conducted in Victorian schools under the auspices of the Victorian Association for the Teaching of English (VATE) and is funded for six years by the Victorian Department of Education and Training. In five years it has involved 36 schools. In this paper we focus on the experiences of teachers involved in the first three years of the project. The project begins by drawing attention, through an examination of literature, to disturbing levels of disengagement with reading at school and to a culture of pedagogy in English that has shifted over recent times toward transactional teaching and away from a focus on meaning-making. Drawing upon teacher interviews, the paper examines how teachers find passion and purpose in their teaching of reading through an initial focus on student experience revealed in drawings, which they find surprising and moving. In Communities of Practice and with the support of an external Critical Friend, the teachers explore a complex understanding of reading that has imaginative, dialogic, emotional, critical, metacognitive and embodied dimensions and design and trial reading activities with the aim of deepening students’ reading experiences. Through a focus on what teachers say, the paper explores what is learned through this experience and examines some of the challenges associated with sustaining change in schools.

Teacher learning and the everyday digital

As mobile and connected digital practices reshape social, interpersonal and learning relationships, it is increasingly challenging for teachers and schools to keep pace with rapid change. This paper reports on a professional learning project which set out to support teachers to learn more about how students in their classes used technologies, which technologies they used, what they thought about how they and others used them, and what they used them for. Teachers’ research into students’ digital use acted as a necessary intervention and prior step to developing classroom- and school-level responses to young people’s use of digital technologies. The paper reports on teachers’ findings, their responses to what they learnt and the implications for schools. In parallel, it reports also on the processes of the research and its deliverables as a professional learning enterprise, and the operation and value of this approach as professional learning methodology.

Teacher Empowerment through Partnerships: A Sustaining Model of Professional Development

This article describes a state-level partnership between the Department of Education, a National Writing Project site, and teacher leaders at five schools. The partnership’s goal was to empower teacher leaders to implement a professional learning project at their individual schools.

Introducing teachers to new semiotic tools for writing instruction and writing assessment: consequences for students’ writing proficiency

This article reports consequences for student writing quality based on a long-term professional learning project. Project teachers, representing all school subjects in grades 3–7, were presented with a writing construct, ‘Wheel of Writing’, and norms of expectation for writing proficiency. Participating teachers used the writing construct and norms as a basis for writing instruction and writing assessment. The project was conducted in 24 schools across Norway. 3088 students from 20 project schools participated. Two hundred and thirty three students from 4 schools were used as a comparison group. The investigation showed that students in primary school improved their writing quality significantly. Students in lower secondary school did not. However, there was substantial variation in writing quality effects between schools, classes, and individual students. For instance at a number of schools, project students from lower secondary school improved their writing quality significantly. The article discusses potential explanations of the effects.

Supporting evidence use in networked professional learning: the role of the middle leader

Background: In Canada, contemporary collaborative professional learning models for educators utilise multiple forms of evidence to inform practice. Commonly, two forms of evidence are prioritised: (a) research-based evidence and (b) classroom-based evidence of student learning. In Ontario, the integration of these two forms of evidence within professional learning is increasingly facilitated by ‘middle leaders’ – school district level educators who support system change through sustained school- and classroom-embedded professional development with teachers.Purpose: This study investigated the role of the middle leader in supporting teachers’ use of research- and classroom-based evidence within the context of collaborative professional learning. It was guided by the following research questions: (a) What is the capacity of middle leaders to use research- and classroom-based evidence within professional learning contexts? (b) What challenges do middle leaders encounter in using research- and classroom-based evidence within professional learning contexts? and (c) How do middle leaders develop their capacity for evidence use within professional learning contexts?Programme Description: The context for this study was a three-year networked professional learning project that included nine school districts in Ontario, Canada. An evidence-based collaborative inquiry approach was used to explore the common goal of improving mathematics teaching and learning across the nine districts.Participants: A purposeful sample of 30 middle leaders (i.e. system facilitators) and 54 teachers (36 Primary/Junior school teachers [student ages 4–11] and 18 Intermediate/Senior school teachers [student ages 12–18]) across the nine school districts was selected based on these educators’ high degree of engagement in the project and willingness to participate in data collection. System facilitators were relative experts in mathematics instruction and provided differentiated and embedded support in mathematics pedagogy to school inquiry teams (i.e. school administrators and selected teachers), responsive to their local needs and goals.Design and Methods: A qualitative approach was used, comprising focus groups conducted at the end of each project year with study participants. Data collection yielded 27 system facilitator focus groups (nine per year) and 27 teacher focus groups (also nine per year), each transcribed verbatim.Findings: Standard thematic coding of focus group data was used to elucidate four emergent themes across system facilitators and teachers: (a) realising the need for data literacy in the construction of classroom evidence, (b) challenges to evidence use, (c) support enabling evidence use and (d) changing attitudes about evidence. Overall, findings indicated that both middle leaders and teachers required data literacy to use, successfully, classroom evidence within a collaborative inquiry. Although middle leaders encountered challenges to facilitating teachers’ classroom evidence use in collaborative inquiry, they developed their own data literacy through regular cross-district middle leader learning sessions and targeted support from pedagogical and research experts. While both middle leaders and teachers shifted their attitudes and practices with respect to classroom evidence use within the project, this finding did not extend to their critical interrogation of research evidence sources (i.e. research literacy).Conclusions: Middle leaders play a central role in promoting evidence use within networked collaborative professional learning. Diverse strategies are needed to support middle leaders’ use of both research- and classroom-based evidence throughout collaborative inquiry cycles, to inform and monitor classroom, school, district and regional impacts. While increased data literacy may enhance educators’ use of classroom evidence, it may not directly impact their uptake of research to inform their collaborative inquiries.

The Reported Effects of a Systematic Professional Learning Program on the Knowledge, Skills, and Concerns of Australian Early Childhood Educators who Support Young Children Displaying or at Risk of Challenging Behaviours

High-quality early childhood education is a vital experience for young children with and without disabilities. Social and communication experiences in the context of play represent a core curriculum that sets a foundation for later learning and participation. Using a new self-report instrument, this article describes data collected in a large-scale professional learning project in NSW, Australia, that aimed to support early childhood teachers, paraprofessionals and other personnel who directly work with young children, including individuals who present or are at risk of challenging behaviours. Using a case application model of remote and direct coaching support and intervention centred on the input of expert practitioners, the reports of participants were collected before and after a series of three sequential workshops with embedded action research processes for participants. The program was designed to increase social and communicative exchanges and reduce the likelihood of challenging behaviours, by providing a systematic and practical framework for the introduction of functional behavioural assessment and positive support planning. Respondents indicated significant improvements in knowledge and skills after the program, along with decreased concerns in some areas. The paper concludes by discussing potential areas for an expanded research agenda into the professional learning needs of personnel in this field and more broadly within early childhood support systems and services.

Developing professionally: examining the value of an external agent to the professional growth of teachers experimenting with mobile digital technologies

This article presents and discusses findings related to the relationship between a university researcher acting as the external agent and three self-selected teachers involved in a professional learning and research project. The role of an external agent in supporting teachers’ professional development is of interest because it has not always been a role that has benefited teachers. The focus centres on how these three teachers viewed this role at the end of a two-year partnership. The wider project is centred on developing these teachers’ proficiency and knowledge of the value of iPads to both their own professional growth and classroom practices as well as their students’ learning. Some digital aspects of the project have already been addressed by Wright and colleagues, but not the perceptions of teachers regarding what value they put on the external agent role. Bevins and Price’s conception of school/university partnerships inspired this focus on wondering about the impact of the researcher acting as an external agent intersecting with teachers’ professional lives as we tracked their progress in using the iPads.

Teacher agency and professional learning: Rethinking fidelity of implementation as multiplicities of enactment

In this paper we use practice theory, with its focus on the interplay of structure and agency, to theorize about teacher engagement in professional learning and teacher enactment of pedagogical practices as an alternative to framing implementation research in terms of program adherence and fidelity of implementation. Practice theory allowed us to reconsider assumptions about characteristics of effective teacher professional learning, and to rethink our own notions of agency. Using data from our three-year middle school science teacher professional learning project, Language-rich Inquiry Science with English Language Learners (LISELL), we discuss how individual teachers negotiated power structures of schooling and exerted their agency in ways that were influenced by their project participation. Framing our work in terms of engagement and enactment, we theorize about how a structure-agency dialectic challenging assumptions about effective teacher professional learning can support new ways of thinking about implementation research in education. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 489–502, 2015

Instructional Rounds as a professional learning model for systemic implementation of Assessment for Learning

The purpose of this research was to examine the implementation of a professional learning project aimed at building educators’ knowledge and skills in assessment for learning (AfL) within two school districts in Ontario, Canada. Specifically, the research examined the value of a two-tier Instructional Rounds (IR) professional learning model. This professional learning model was unique because it engaged both teachers and principals in collaboratively learning and implementing AfL strategies in order to develop systemic capacity in assessment. In total, 12 principals, 48 teachers, two superintendents and two school district assessment consultants participated in the study. Data were collected through observations of IR sessions, classroom observations, interviews, IR session reflections and a post-project survey. Findings from this study report on positive changes in teachers’ and principals’ conceptions and implementation of AfL as well as on the value and challenges of IR as a professional learning model. The paper concludes with a discussion on developing systemic capacity in AfL through an IR model of professional learning.

Examining teachers’ understanding of the mathematical learning progression through vertical articulation during Lesson Study

This study examines elementary- and middle-grade teachers’ understanding of the mathematical learning progression as they participated in a 6-month professional learning project. Teachers participated in a professional development project that consisted of a 1-week summer content-focused institute with school-based follow-up Lesson Study cycles in the fall that focused on the vertical articulation of algebraic concepts across grade levels. The following research examines how a vertical team of teachers from multiple grades designed, taught and learned from the Lesson Study cycle. The video analysis from the research lessons and the teachers’ reflections revealed teachers’ developing vertical connections and representational fluency from their planning, teaching, observation and debriefs. In addition, Lesson Study afforded teachers opportunities to deepen their understanding of the mathematical learning progression through observation and analysis of students’ thinking through a situated school-based professional development experience.

Representations of Concepts as a Catalyst for Change in Teacher Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Increased pressure to improve teaching quality has intensified the emphasis on the development of conceptual understanding in mathematics rather than reliance on procedural understanding. A particularly problematic content area is fractions. This article explores the shifts in pedagogical content knowledge for fractions in a group of 12 primary teachers during a professional learning project. Responses to a ‘before and after’ fractions task and reflective comments revealed the majority of teachers developed a more comprehensive understanding. We propose that emphasizing different representations of fractions for teaching, especially number lines and grids, has the potential to positively influence teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge.

A collaborative action research approach to professional learning

The field of professional development is moving towards the notion of professional learning, highlighting the active learning role that teachers play in changing their knowledge bases, beliefs and practice. This article builds on this idea and argues for creating professional learning that is guided by a collaborative action research (CAR) theoretical framework, founded on an action research philosophy. CAR components include: motivation – teacher orientation and self-efficacy; knowledge – adding to knowledge bases about disciplines and students relevant to teachers’ interests; action – change in teaching practice perceived to improve student achievement; and reflection – the cornerstone of the entire learning process in which teachers are afforded time and support to connect new experiences to their teaching practice. This article argues for professional learning developers to consider utilizing these four CAR components as a framework. A current professional learning project that was based on the CAR framework is employed to illustrate how it can be implemented.

Transforming ‘The Red Beast’ Within Through Mindfulness and Therapeutic Storytelling: A Case Study

The case is presented of a professional learning project through which a school counsellor was assisted in her work with a child who she admitted ‘rattled her cage’ due to his complex needs and behaviours and the effect these had on her and the other children in her social skills group. As a result of a combination of mindfulness and therapeutic storytelling the child was able to gain an insight into his behaviour, which helped him feel a new sense of calm, safety and belonging. While the story of ‘The Red Beast’ provided the therapeutic content, the counsellor's transmission of mindfulness into the story telling space allowed it to be absorbed as wisdom to be drawn upon later by him and the other children in the group. This case demonstrates that school counsellors can benefit from professional development in mindfulness practice that supports them to become more attuned to the needs of vulnerable children through becoming more aware of their own emotional energies. It also shows that a therapeutic story's effectiveness can be enhanced if the teller is mindful of the right moment, manner and context in which to tell it.

Using Educative Assessments to Support Science Teaching for Middle School English-language Learners

Grounded in Hallidayan perspectives on academic language, we report on our development of an educative science assessment as one component of the language-rich inquiry science for English-language learners teacher professional learning project for middle school science teachers. The project emphasizes the role of content-area writing to support teachers in diagnosing their students’ emergent understandings of science inquiry practices, science content knowledge, and the academic language of science, with a particular focus on the needs of English-language learners. In our current school policy context, writing for meaningful purposes has received decreased attention as teachers struggle to cover large numbers of discrete content standards. Additionally, high-stakes assessments presented in multiple-choice format have become the definitive measure of student science learning, further de-emphasizing the value of academic writing for developing and expressing understanding. To counter these trends, we examine the implementation of educative assessment materials—writing-rich assessments designed to support teachers’ instructional decision making. We report on the qualities of our educative assessment that supported teachers in diagnosing their students’ emergent understandings, and how teacher–researcher collaborative scoring sessions and interpretation of assessment results led to changes in teachers’ instructional decision making to better support students in expressing their scientific understandings. We conclude with implications of this work for theory, research, and practice.

Demonstration lessons in mathematics education: teachers’ observation foci and intended changes in practice

As part of a teacher professional learning project in mathematics education, university mathematics educators taught demonstration lessons in project primary schools. These lessons were part of a “pre-brief, teaching, and debrief” process, in which up to eight teachers observed each lesson. Using brief questionnaires completed in advance of the lesson, during the lesson, following the debrief, and several weeks later, data were collected on teachers’ intended and actual observation foci and any anticipated changes in their beliefs and practices arising from the experience. There were several common themes in teachers’ intended observations, including a focus on questioning, catering for individual differences, and building student engagement. As evident in other research, teachers’ intended and actual observations gave greater attention to teacher actions and decision making than to student learning and thinking. In this paper, we situate demonstration lessons within teacher professional learning models, describe the features of our model, summarise teacher data, and discuss issues arising from our work.

Lost and found in transition: the professional journey of teacher educators

This paper considers the professional development of a group of 75 primary and secondary teachers in Melbourne, Victoria, who had been charged with the responsibility of leading the professional learning of their colleagues in their schools. To support these leaders of professional learning in their roles, the Victorian state government’s Department of Education and Early Childhood Development contracted members of the Pedagogy and Professional Learning Research Group at Monash University to develop and implement an appropriate Professional Learning program. The Leading Professional Learning (LPL) program ran for seven months and consisted of a series of four face‐to‐face workshops that were sustained through the formation of peer networks. Each participant in the program was responsible for designing and implementing a school‐specific professional learning project appropriate to their school setting. At the final workshop in the LPL program, participants reflected on and recorded their learning through the formalised process of case writing. Their cases were published in a book of Cases of Professional Dilemmas and form the basis of the data‐sets that have been used to research participants’ learning about leading the professional learning of their colleagues. As a consequence, this paper offers interesting insights into the journey of these educators of teachers as they have developed deeper understandings of what it means to be a teacher educator.