Year-long Professional Development Program Research Articles

A Phenomenological Study of Intensive Experiential Learning for University Faculty Professional Development

Background: College students need the ability to generalize and apply solutions through reflective practice. University faculty need professional development to use authentic cases to prepare students for the future. Purpose: This study was to explore the experiences of faculty through a year-long professional development program that included a field experience contextually focused on natural disasters. Methodology: This phenomenological study used personal interviews with faculty about the essence of the shared experience. Data were analyzed through open coding, axial coding, and theoretical triangulation from Kolb’s experiential learning model. Findings/Conclusions: Participant interviews yielded 32 codes that were categorized into 12 themes and theoretically triangulated into the four components of Kolb’s experiential learning model: Experience, Reflection, Generalization, and Application. The concrete experience themes were connection to disasters, to other faculty, and new perspectives. Faculty reflected on their expertise, the importance of engaging experiences, and new realizations. Generalization broadened disciplinary perspectives and connections. Faculty gained teaching applications, including leadership concepts, and humanizing science. Implication: Professional development for faculty using experiential learning can improve teaching capacity for the next generation to solve complex problems of social, economic, and health concerns within communities.

Quantity and quality of literacy instruction for English language learners in Indiana elementary schools

Abstract This research adopts a collective case study to explore the quantity (time allocations for key literacy components and group configurations) and the quality of English language arts (ELA) instruction for Grade 1 English language learners (ELLs) across six classrooms in three Indiana elementary school districts during the 2019–2020 school year. Three teachers (treatment group) were participants in a year-long professional development (PD) program consisting of ELL teacher licensure coursework (plus instructional coaching for two of the treatment teachers). The other three teachers (control group) did not participate in the PD program. Analysis of video-recordings of teachers’ ELA instruction, coded video instances, and time allocations reveal that overall treatment teachers allocated more time for the ELA block, more time for vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency instruction, and in general provided higher quality instruction. The findings provide evidence of the effectiveness of the PD program for improving ELA instruction for ELLs. However, both control and treatment teachers have some discrepancies in the quality and quantity of their literacy instruction compared to evidence-based research. This study holds important implications for literacy educators as they identify and employ strategies best suited for ELLs.

Teachers’ structuring of mathematical inquiry lessons: shifting from “task-first” to “scaffolded inquiry”

ABSTRACT A three-phase “task-first” lesson structure is frequently suggested when teaching mathematics through inquiry. We investigate how secondary school teachers of mathematics structure their inquiry lessons and examine how and why they deviate from a “task-first” structure. We present detailed lesson observation data from three teachers participating in a year-long professional development programme focused on inquiry teaching. We track the developing structure of these teachers’ inquiry lessons through minute-by-minute lesson analysis, describe how their lesson structures altered over time and explore why. Our data show that contextual constraints may explain why teachers departed from the “task-first” lesson structure. In their inquiry teaching, two of the teachers adopted more scaffolded approaches, including the use of a sequence of smaller sub-tasks and teacher interventions. We argue that these modifications to a “task-first” lesson structure are legitimate ways to support student learning through inquiry; indeed, that they may offer some advantages for inquiry teaching.

Professional development in classroom discussion to improve argumentation: Teacher and student outcomes

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a year-long professional development program in classroom discussion designed to improve students' argumentation skills in language arts classes. Twenty-six fifth-grade teachers and their 471 students at two research sites participated: 14 teachers in the experimental condition, who received the professional development, and 12 teachers in the comparison condition. Results showed that the professional development led to statistically significant improvements in the quality of teachers' facilitation and student argumentation during discussions, and in students' performance on individual argumentative reading and writing tasks following the discussions, at the end of the year. Findings suggest that the professional development for teachers resulted in strengthened student abilities to connect positions with relevant reasons and evidence, and that argumentation skills acquired in the discussions may have transferred to students’ individual argumentation, at least for reading outcomes.

Multiple Representations in Elementary Science: Building Shared Understanding while Leveraging Students’ Diverse Ideas and Practices

ABSTRACT Research has explored how science teachers can create equitable learning environments. In addition, research demonstrates that representations can be powerful tools for supporting disciplinary learning and inviting and leveraging students’ diverse ideas and practices. Yet, professional development (PD) about representations has primarily focused on teachers’ knowledge of disciplinary practices rather than on how teachers can value and build upon students’ representations as resources for equitable sensemaking. In this paper, we present cases from a year-long professional development program with in-service elementary teachers designed to support science teaching with representations. Through our work with these teachers, we have illustrated an approach to using representations that supports equitable sensemaking by: (1) making space for students to create personally meaningful representations, (2) amplifying students’ representations, and (3) helping students iteratively refine their representations and ideas. These findings extend literature about inclusive science teaching by illustrating how focusing on students’ representations can support equitable sensemaking and by addressing tensions that emerge between equitable teaching, science standards that prioritize canonical knowledge and practices, and monoglossic language ideologies.

Enhancing mathematics teacher professional learning through a contextualized professional development program

ABSTRACT This study investigated the impact of a year-long professional development (PD) program on mathematics teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practice. The PD program of the study was designed to connect mathematics teachers’ learning and teaching practice through integrating situated aspects of the teaching profession and teachers’ reflections. Data was collected from three cohorts of teachers across three program years. Results from repeated-measures ANCOVA show changes in self-efficacy, epistemological beliefs, and math pedagogical knowledge. Teachers’ content knowledge decreased in the first-year group but increased for teachers in Year 2 and 3 cohorts. Teaching practice improved about one standard deviation along the indices measured. Multiple regression results show that teachers’ self-efficacy and epistemological beliefs influenced their practice. The discussion includes assessing links between PD design and its effectiveness in influencing knowledge, belief, and practice change, as well as making the case for future PD programs to consider targeting multiple interconnected teacher outcomes.

Instructional Change after Participating in a Mathematics Professional Development Program: An Exploration of Impact

This research study explored teachers’ self-reported uptake as well as observed instructional change after participating in a year-long professional development (PD) program focused on supporting the learning and teaching of transformations-based geometry. Analyses illuminate the degree and nature of the pedagogical shifts made by teachers who participated in this highly specified, videocase-based PD program. The treatment teachers’ lessons started out significantly lower on most aspects of their instructional quality relative to the control teachers’ lessons prior to the PD. However, the control teachers stayed the same or showed a decline in their instructional quality scores, whereas the treatment teachers made significant gains after the PD that brought them to the same level as the control teachers. The article concludes by considering how engagement with intentionally designed videocases during the PD may have contributed to the teachers' improvement in targeted dimensions of instructional quality.

Visualization- and analytics-supported video-based professional development for promoting mathematics classroom discourse

Although classroom discourse that positions students as active participants benefits both their learning and cognitive development, teachers often find it challenging to implement dialogic instructions in the classroom. This study reports on a video-based teacher professional development (PD) program that leverages visualizations and analytics in supporting teacher change in whole-class dialogue in mathematics classrooms. Both experimental and comparison teachers (n = 24 and 22, respectively) were provided with information on dialogic instructions, and experimental teachers used the Classroom Discourse Analyzer to reflect on videos of their lessons and their peers' lessons in a year-long PD program. The intervention teachers significantly moved toward less dominant classroom talk—they reduced the number of words spoken per lesson, and their students significantly increased the number of words per turn in whole-class discussions, relative to the comparison teachers. Furthermore, analysis of the classroom discourse shows qualitative changes in the intervention teachers' discourse. PD workshop and teacher self-reflection data are analyzed to examine how visualizations and analytics in the PD program may serve as a cross-boundary object to support peer collaboration in reflective practice, and to increase teachers' awareness of their teaching development.

Professional Development, Shifting Perspectives, and Instructional Change among Community College Anatomy and Physiology Instructors.

This paper presents community college (CC) instructors’ responses to the Community College Anatomy and Physiology Educational Research (CAPER) project, a professional development program focused on active learning and educational research. We engage with conceptual change theory to better understand why and how CC instructors shifted their perspectives toward active learning. Qualitative data indicate that the participating CC instructors experienced pedagogical discontentment, leading to increased positive beliefs about active learning and educational research. In addition, we find that CC instructors have continued their pursuit of pedagogical change and educational research through communities of practice, which provide positive learning environments.

Improving Experienced Mathematics Teachers’ Classroom Talk: A Visual Learning Analytics Approach to Professional Development

The professional development of experienced teachers has received considerably less attention than that of novice teachers. This study focuses on four experienced secondary mathematics teachers in Shanghai, China, with two participating in a year-long professional development program (treatment teachers) and the other two received conventional knowledge-based professional development (comparison teachers). The program introduced productive classroom talk skills which can facilitate teachers’ formative assessment of student learning during class. To encourage teachers to reflect on their classroom discourse when reviewing recordings of their teaching, we used visual learning analytics with the treatment teachers and theorized the use of this technology with activity theory. After completing the program, the treatment teachers were better able to use productive talk moves to elicit student responses and to provide timely formative feedback accordingly. Specifically, the percentage of word contributions in lessons from students and the length of their responses increased noticeably. Qualitative findings suggest that the use of visual learning analytics mediated the treatment teachers and improved classroom discourse. Based on these findings and activity theory, we provide recommendations for future use of visual learning analytics to improve teachers’ classroom talk and designing professional development activities for experienced teachers.

Examination of teacher formative assessment self-efficacy development across a professional learning experience

ABSTRACT In this study, in the United States, the authors used multilevel growth modeling to examine the impact of an intensive, year-long professional development program on teacher self-efficacy for formative assessment tasks. They further examined the relationship between self-efficacy and observed implementation of formative assessment practices in the classroom. Participants included 189 teachers from 17 schools across nine districts in a northwestern state. Results showed a significant (p < .001) growth in self-efficacy through six measurement points. The relationship between self-efficacy and classroom practice was found to be weak-to-negative, suggesting higher levels of self-efficacy were not necessarily associated with successful implementation of formative assessment. These results signal a need to support teachers’ abilities to provide accurate self-assessment, examine additional variables that may influence a teacher’s successful implementation of formative assessment, and critically examine the use of self-efficacy as an outcome variable in the study of teacher professional learning.

Evaluating a novel faculty development program in teaching at a research-intensive university

ABSTRACT Early-career faculty (ECF) are faced with maintaining excellence in teaching and research for tenure. However, many enter academia with little or no teaching experience. Madison Teaching and Learning Excellence, a year-long professional development program, was designed to mitigate these pressures and help faculty become fast, efficient, and effective teachers. The authors evaluated this program on participants’ use of learner-centered course designs and classroom practices compared with non-participants and also measured challenges encountered by ECF. Participants’ gains in effective course design were positive, stable, and transferable to other courses. Participants reported feeling more prepared for tenure review and possessed a heightened self-awareness and assessment of their teaching. Although participants scored moderately high on measures of learner-centered practices, their scores were similar to non-participants. The authors hope their evaluation will inform faculty development programs; they summarize challenges they encountered to spur development of better evaluation tools that balance practitioners’ needs and available resources.

Examining inquiry-based learning stages of concern for high school agriscience teachers

There is documented need for improvement of science comprehension amongst high school students in the United States, and inquiry-based learning (IBL) is a recommended teaching strategy to improve science comprehension. Several researchers have focused on examination of learning outcomes for students, but few have researched the concerns of teachers who may wish to adopt IBL methodology. This study used the stages of concern questionnaire to profile ten Midwest high school agriscience teachers’ concerns regarding implementation of IBL, before and after participation in a year-long professional development program where IBL lessons were developed and used in the participants’ high school classrooms. Results indicated that while some participants showed a positive progression in their stage of concern, most professional development program participants did not progress in their concern stage, and some developed increased resistance to IBL as a teaching strategy. This suggests that teachers may need more robust and tailored support when adopting IBL for their classrooms.

Supporting science teachers teaching outside specialism: teachers’ views of a professional development programme

ABSTRACT In Malta, most science teachers are likely to have a teaching degree level qualification in one science subject. When teaching science in the first two years of secondary school they will be teaching outside their area of science specialism, that is teaching a subject/s that was not studied at degree or Advanced level. A study was conducted to investigate how a group of science teachers, who are non-chemistry specialists, could be supported to teach chemistry topics by participating in a year-long professional development programme. Data were gathered through individual and focus group interviews. This paper focuses on the teachers’ views of this programme and how it affected their views of teaching chemistry. After conducting experiments, discussing and planning lessons within a community of learners teachers felt better prepared to teach chemistry. This enabled them to change their views and expand their identity as a science teacher.

An Investigation of Teachers Encouraged to Reform Grading Practices in Secondary Schools

Despite the ubiquity and complexity of grading, there is limited contemporary research on grading students in schools. There is, however, an outpouring of publications and consultants promoting new approaches. Many eliminate effort and behavior scores, remove the zero, adopt a four-point system, advocate rubrics, or promote their own software packages. To study changes in grading, we collected data in two New York high schools undergoing a year-long professional development program on rethinking grading. We not only used existing literature on grading to frame our study but also relied on institutional theory and teacher identity as frameworks. We found that productive teacher change occurred, but it was partial, tentative, contingent on school-wide support, and not without frustration on the part of teachers.

Year-long teacher professional development on fifth grade student science outcomes

ABSTRACTWe first examined the effects of a year-long professional development (PD) programme for elementary science teachers on fifth grade student performance on state-mandated science achievement tests of students from a treatment and a comparison group of teachers in the 2009–2010 academic year. Then, we investigated the longer-term impacts by comparing the 2010–2011 student test results of the teachers one year after receiving treatment in 2009–2010 with the students of teachers who received treatment during 2010–2011. Test scores were analysed using a propensity score matching method to examine the relationship between the PD and student achievement. Results showed that even though the treatment teachers were out of the classroom 20% of the school year to attend the PD, there was no difference between their students’ science achievement scores and those of the comparison teachers who were in the classroom every day. This is an important finding because many principals and parents are reluctant to provide teachers with release time for PD. We also determined that students of teachers one year after participating in the PD significantly (p < 0.001) with a medium effect size (η2 = .088) outperformed students of teachers who had just completed the programme. This suggests that it takes time for teachers to implement new teaching strategies and that to observe the impact of an intervention programme, it may be important to expand the timeframe of the programme evaluation.

The Development of a Framework for Assessing Dynamic Geometry Task Quality

This study documents the development of a Framework (the Dynamic Geometry Task Analysis Framework) to be used to indicate the relative quality of tasks produced for dynamic geometry software. Its purpose is to assist curriculum writers and teachers in evaluating and creating dynamic geometry tasks. To produce it, numerous tasks submitted by secondary mathematics teachers as part of a year-long professional development program were analyzed, before creating three dynamic geometry mathematics tasks that, according to the Framework, were ranked as low, medium and high in quality. Semi-structured interviews with twelve high school students were conducted and analyzed to examine relationships between the quality of tasks as specified by the Framework and the quality of student argumentation. Results showed the Framework effectively reflects task quality based on student mathematical activity and argumentation.

Help Wanted: Psychiatrist/Psychotherapist

Help Wanted: Psychiatrist/Psychotherapist

Self-efficacy, teacher concerns, and levels of implementation among teachers participating in drama-based instruction professional development

This mixed methods study seeks to explore the relationships between teacher concerns, self-efficacy, and level of comfort with the implementation of drama-based instruction (DBI) within a large-scale initiative to increase learning opportunities through the arts. This study was embedded in a year-long professional development program during which teachers either (a) attended three school-wide in-service trainings (‘non-cadre teachers’) or (b) participated in a small group (‘cadre teachers’) that received ongoing, focused support from a teaching artist throughout the year in addition to the school-wide training. Significant differences were present in cadre teachers’ comfort with the reform as compared to non-cadre teachers both at the beginning and end of the reform. Additionally, self-efficacy and comfort with DBI were significantly related at both the beginning and end of the year. Teachers who were more comfortable with DBI appeared to progress to higher order concerns regarding the reform. We discuss the significance of these findings in the context of design and implementation of professional developments that promote pedagogical conceptual change.

Capturing Change: Creating a Template to Examine the Educational Experiences and Outcomes of the AONE Foundation Nurse Manager Fellowship.

The aim of the study is to create a mixed-methods evaluation template to examine the educational experiences and outcomes of participants in the Nurse Manager Fellowship (NMF) sponsored by the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) Foundation. The focus was to capture change as reported by the nurse manager (NM) fellows and the senior leaders who sponsored them and to gain access to the participants' lived experiences as leadership learners. The AONE Foundation's NMF conducts a yearlong professional development program with a cohort of 30 fellows who meet 4 times a year in face-to-face sessions and complete a capstone project. Four data collection methods were used. Participants completed 2 quantitative leadership program outcome surveys, as well as 1 qualitative measure to focus on self-perceived change outcomes. Their sponsors completed a qualitative perception of change measure. The participants' reflections, self-reports, and the sponsor observations capture impactful changes in the NM fellows' increases in knowledge and application in the spheres of self, organization, and community. The enhancement of the participants' self-identification as leaders was also demonstrated. The variety of data collection methods suggests both distinct choices in creating future evaluation templates for the fellowship and approaches that might be adapted by other organizations.