High‐quality professional development is essential in supporting accomplished teaching. But how is the efficacy of professional development evaluated?
The authors present several methods for conducting a critical analysis of professional development. Using a large‐scale professional development initiative as the focal point, they first explain six widely cited principles of high‐quality professional development and show evidence of them in the initiative#146s design and structure. Second, they report findings from pre‐ and postsurveys of participants over three years, which showed statistically significant positive differences in teacher understanding of literacy concepts. Third, the authors present a vignette to illustrate how one coaching tool used in the project supports teachers in making instructional shifts based on student learning.
The authors suggest that those who offer professional development for teachers should evaluate their programs through accepted principles of design. They conclude with additional questions related to meaningful, robust accountability systems for professional development.
One of my weaknesses has always been documenting a student's progress, because I always found it such an overwhelming task. I would assess students, hand in the scores to an administrator, and then file them away. I literally would assess here and there, never use the results, and concentrate on whole-group instruction. Individual needs based on assessment were never taken into consideration. (Calderon [a kindergarten teacher], cited in Reilly, 2007, p. 770) ASSESSMENT ASSESSMENT
From an improvement research perspective, this study explores strategies used to implement a school-wide vocabulary intervention into language arts instruction at an urban elementary school. Academic language time, an innovative change in the instructional delivery system, allots time and structure for deliberate teaching of cross-disciplinary academic vocabulary as a routine practice in the language arts block. Implementation included a set of core strategies delivered by a university-school purveyor team. Implementation evidence consisting of survey, observation, and interview data was collected over one school year. Quantitative and qualitative analytic techniques were applied to determine effectiveness of the implementation strategies. Results identify strategy characteristics that supported or impeded the implementation process, the valence of strategy patterns, and areas for improvement. The strategy analysis provides fine-grained descriptive information that informs the specification and description of implementation strategies for purposes of innovation and change.
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