Successful Professional Development Programs Research Articles

Scaling up effective professional development: Toward successful adaptation through attention to underlying mechanisms

Delivering effective professional development (PD) at scale necessitates a careful balance between program integrity and local adaptation. Drawing on qualitative case study data, this paper explores tensions in the implementation of a successful PD program, Quality Teaching Rounds, within two contrasting school communities in New South Wales, Australia. Using the theoretical distinction between ostensive and performative aspects of implementation, we demonstrate how even slight surface-level adaptations to the program can have profound consequences for teacher learning. We argue that scaling efforts must attend to the underlying mechanisms of effective PD, not just its design, if benefits are to be realised.

Four Lessons to Take From Athena-Without Disguising Oneself as the Mortal, Mentor.

Four Lessons to Take From Athena-Without Disguising Oneself as the Mortal, Mentor.

Implementation and Assessment of a Visiting Scholar Exchange Program in Pediatric Anesthesiology to Promote Junior Faculty and Fellow Professional Development.

Junior faculty in academic medicine often struggle with establishing their careers, resulting in low promotion and high attrition rates. Fellows also grapple with the decision to pursue careers in academic medicine. We report on the implementation and evaluation of a novel faculty and fellows exchange program that promotes career development. In 2017, the University of California San Francisco created a reciprocal faculty exchange program called the Visiting Scholars in Pediatric Anesthesia Program (ViSiPAP). ViSiPAP expanded to involve 17 institutions across the United States. Fellows from 3 of the institutions were paired with faculty mentors to create Fellow/Faculty ViSiPAP. An initial postparticipation survey was sent after each exchange, and a follow-up survey in 2020 assessed ViSiPAP's impact. Fifty-three faculty participated in ViSiPAP and gave 66 presentations, and 20 fellows from 3 institutions gave 20 presentations. The initial postparticipation survey response rate was 88%, and the follow-up survey response rate was 74%. Survey responses indicated that ViSiPAP enhanced fellow and faculty well-being, improved didactic conferences, and provided opportunities for networking and collaborating. The follow-up survey indicated that participation in ViSiPAP led to 45 online academic publications, 39 additional invited presentations, and 8 authorships in peer-reviewed academic journals. ViSiPAP is a successful professional development program for both fellows and junior faculty in pediatric anesthesia. Our program successfully introduced the participants into the pediatric anesthesia community and jumpstarted academic careers. Participation in ViSiPAP led to increased scholarly output and assisted with faculty promotion. This combined fellow/faculty exchange program is a novel approach to professional development and is broadly applicable to other disciplines in academic medicine.

The pathway to academic success: Scaling up a text-based analytical writing intervention for Latinos and English learners in secondary school.

This study reports findings from a multisite cluster randomized controlled trial designed to validate and scale up an existing successful professional development program that uses a cognitive strategies approach to text-based analytical writing. The Pathway to Academic Success Project worked with partner districts affiliated with 4 National Writing Project (NWP) sites in southern California. Informed by a wide body of research on the efficacy of strategy instruction to enhance students’ academic literacy, the intervention aimed to help secondary school students, particularly Latinos and mainstreamed English learners, to develop the academic writing skills called for in the rigorous Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. Two hundred thirty teachers from partner districts affiliated with the NWP sites were stratified by school and grade and then randomly assigned to the treatment or control group. Treatment teachers participated in 46 hrs of training and learned how to apply cognitive strategies by using an on-demand writing assessment to help students understand, interpret, and write analytical essays about nonfiction texts. Multilevel models revealed significant effects on a holistic measure of an on-demand writing assessment (d = .32) as well as on 4 analytic attributes: content (d = .31), structure (d = .29), fluency (d = .27), and conventions (d = .32). Four dimensions of scaling up—spread, reform ownership, depth, and sustainability—are also discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

The Key Characteristics of Teaching Excellence Programs for Academic Leaders. A Review of High-Ranking Universities’ Experiences Reflected in International Publications

Teaching excellence and academic leadership programs have been emerging and growing in response to the increasing demand for better teaching quality and educational change in universities all over the world. International publications analyzing the experiences of high-ranking universities in developed economies (USA, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, and Australia) are reviewed in this article to identify the characteristics of successful professional development programs for teaching quality and academic leadership in higher education designed to foster educational change. Some fundamental concepts are investigated, such as teaching excellence, teaching quality, instructional development, and academic leadership; their fuzziness and partial overlapping are demonstrated. The article also describes the characteristics of teaching excellence programs for academic leaders, such as key stakeholders (governmental, institutional, and teacher demands) and major approaches to promoting teaching excellence and academic leadership, which include the concept of reflective practice, andragogical theory, transformative learning approach, self-directed learning, inquiry-based learning, and refocusing from teacher to student. The core design features of teaching excellence and academic leadership programs are discussed, such as selection criteria, frequency and duration, principles and formats of implementation, performance and effectiveness assessment. Special emphasis is placed upon the potential obstacles in program realization, in particular the role of internal administrative policies and institutional environment on program effectiveness and the embeddedness of such programs into the university system of educational quality assurance, teacher performance monitoring, career advancement, and human resource strategies.

A successful professional development program in history: What matters?

This study focuses on a successful Professional Development Program for improving students’ understanding of historical time, consisting of a training and the implementation of Timewise, a teaching approach in which timelines were used consistently. The PDP was carried out with 16 elementary school teachers in grades 2 (ages 7-8) and 5 (ages 10-11). Results indicate that the highest student learning gains were reached by teachers who successfully implemented the instructional behavior aimed at, while using educative curriculum materials. The clear structure of Timewise and the user-friendly materials, which included room for autonomy, supported teachers in their learning and teaching.

Exploring the Personal, Social and Occupational Elements of Teacher Professional Development

In a neoliberal political context, educational reform is seen as largely dependent on the individual teacher and his or her ability to continue developing and improving his or her practice with the ultimate goal of improving student outcomes. Professional development (PD) is therefore reliant on teachers to embrace new models of practice, to engage with these new approaches, to correctly interpret the PD ideas for application to the teaching and learning process, and ultimately implement new models and ideas in their classrooms (Huber & Hiltmann, 2011). This paper seeks to examine more closely three aspects of PD that have been found in the research literature to have a significant impact on the effectiveness of PD programs, because of their focus on, and consideration of the individual teacher. Aligning with Fraser, Kennedy, Reid, and McKinney (2007), successful PD programs that have a distinct focus on the personal, social and occupational aspects of teacher development will be discussed.

Reducing achievement gaps in academic writing for Latinos and English learners in Grades 7–12.

This study reports 2 years of findings from a randomized controlled trial designed to replicate and demonstrate the efficacy of an existing, successful professional development program, the Pathway Project, that uses a cognitive strategies approach to text-based analytical writing. Building on an earlier randomized field trial in a large, urban, low socioeconomic status (SES) district in which 98% of the students were Latino and 88% were mainstreamed English learners (ELs) at the intermediate level of fluency, the project aimed to help secondary school students, specifically Latinos and mainstreamed ELs, in another large, urban, low-SES district to develop the academic writing skills called for in the rigorous Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. The Pathway Project draws on well-documented instructional frameworks that support approaches that incorporate strategy instruction to enhance students’ academic literacy. Ninety-five teachers in 16 secondary schools were stratified by school and grade and then randomly assigned to the Pathway or control group. Pathway teachers participated in 46 hr of training to help students write analytical essays. Difference-in-differences and regression analyses revealed significant effects on student writing outcomes in both years of the intervention (Year 1, d = 0.48; Year 2, d = 0.60). Additionally, Pathway students had higher odds than control students of passing the California High School Exit Exam in both years. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Hook, Line and Canvas: Launching a Professional Development Program to Help Librarians Navigate the Still and Stormy Waters of Online Teaching and Learning

ABSTRACTProfessional development is critically important for librarians trying to establish an embedded presence in online and hybrid courses. The institutional learning management system (LMS) provides a medium for enhanced visibility of both library resources and librarians as instructional collaborators and curriculum designers. This case study showcases one academic library's plan for developing an embedded presence in the LMS and scaffolding training and educational opportunities throughout the process. Important considerations and lessons learned from this initiative are also shared as well as future considerations for maintaining an ongoing and successful professional development program.

Shifting Attention Back to Students Within the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol

The Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) is increasingly used as an instructional framework to help elementary and secondary teachers support English language learners (ELLs). This useful tool has helped teachers gain the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they need to support ELLs learn subject-area content and skills while learning English, but the SIOP can still be improved to enhance teacher learning. Specifically, the authors of this study worry that the SIOP prompts teachers to focus on themselves rather than attending and responding to students’ thinking, actions, and sense-making in the classroom. They provide three suggestions that could complement the current SIOP model: (1) additional features that help teachers attend and respond to students’ contributions, (2) supplementary reflective prompts to help teachers consider how their instructional choices impact students, and (3) principles from successful professional development programs that support teachers’ abilities to respond to students during moment-to-moment instructional interactions.

Win-win professional development: Providing meaningful professional development while meeting the needs of all stakeholders

Teacher professional development can be poorly executed with little regard to the needs of adult learners, and this can create barriers to successful transfer of knowledge into practice. In order to create a successful professional development program, a group of educators engaged in a collaborative effort with a local university to offer on-site graduate courses in technology integration that was geared toward the specific needs of teachers in our district. By offering graduate courses covering district technology at reduced tuition held after hours on school grounds, we created a win-win situation for our staff and administration. Such a program can be replicated in other environments with continuing education credits or other recertification units to offer win-win professional development for K-12 educators.

Professional development and the university casual academic: integration and support strategies for distance education

Professional development is imperative for the currency and relevancy of a proficient teaching workforce in distance education, and in turn, the quality of programs being delivered. As participation in distance education within Australian universities is growing, with increasing numbers of academics being required to teach, casual employment of academic staff is often undertaken. As a consequence, casual academics now undertake significant amounts of university teaching loads. In addition, although employed on a casual basis, casual academics often have ongoing relationships with the university, spanning more than one teaching period and in some cases, even years. Professional development is crucial to ensure the replenishment and vivacity of the university, its academics and students. Consequently, the goal of this constructivist grounded theoretical study was to explore the experiences of casual distance education academics, from which professional development emerged as a key theme. Twelve casual academics from a regional university discussed their work experiences through an in-depth semistructured interview. The findings revealed that distance education casual academics accessed a range of formal and informal professional development opportunities. Informal professional development included mentoring, which casual academics highly valued. Formal professional development activities provided by the university were also noted; however, casual academics were sometimes unaware that these existed. Finally, recommendations regarding successful professional development programs for casual academics are given, with particular emphasis on an Early Career Education Research group that operates at the university and is open to all staff.

Trust Your Own Observations: Assessment of reader and tutor behaviour in learning to read in English and M # ori

In our previous article, we reported on a research project designed to improve the attending, reading, and writing behaviour of nine older low-achieving children in a special class in an urban primary school. We attempted operational definitions of important reader and tutor behaviours that occur during one-to-one oral reading, and we applied direct observational principles to coding and recording their occurrence from transcribed tapes of children's regular reading with their teacher. This provided data that served to monitor short-term and long-term change in both child and tutor (teacher) behaviour during oral reading interactions. In the present paper, we describe how these direct observational principles have contributed to the development of assessment and tutoring strategies for both adults and peers in the English language Pause Prompt Praise and the M # ori language Tatari Tautoko Tauawhi reading tutoring programs. The assessment strategies generated from observations of reader and tutor interaction around written texts have provided strong support for students learning to read in both English medium and M # ori medium contexts. They have also served as powerful components of successful professional development programs for teachers.

Recommendations for Offering Successful Professional Development Programs for Teachers

As chemical educators, we are uniquely positioned to contribute to the effort of achieving scientific literacy by helping to improve professional development opportunities. At the Center for Chemistry Education, we have been offering professional development programs for more than a decade. Our key programming components include program administration, vision of the classroom, teacher development program activities, contribution of partnering scientists, follow-up, teacher leadership, program evaluation, materials development, and dissemination. This article shares insights we have gained through those components with the hope that others who are initiating their own professional development activities for teachers might learn from our experiences.

A Collaborative Effort to Enhance Reading and Writing Instruction in Inclusion Classrooms

A year-long researcher-teacher professional development group with a next-year followup was conducted with seven general education teachers from two elementary schools in a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. The two schools had recently restructured their special education program to include students with LD in the general education class full-time. Teachers were taught four reading and writing practices (one during each nine-week grading block). All but two of the teachers partially or completely implemented the practices during the nine-week period. Sustained implementation during the school year was maintained by four of the seven teachers, and three of the seven teachers continued high implementation of the instructional practices during the next school year. The components of successful professional development programs are discussed and implications for teacher education are offered.

Development of a self-assessment program in obstetrics and gynecology

To meet the needs of their membership, many professional societies are developing home study, self assessment programs designed for the practicing physician. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has instituted a five-year cycle, issuing a new unit each year, focusing on one of the five components of the specialty. The objectives of the program are to provide a means of self-directed independent study for professional development for obstetrician-gynecologists, to assist physicians in iden tifying their strengths and weaknesses in clinical knowledge, and to provide a means for participants to compare their performance to the performance of others. PROLOG (Personal Re view of Learning in Obstetrics and Gynecology) has been one of ACOG's most successful professional development programs. The following article describes the development process for creating each unit, and presents some of the results of the first two years.