District Policy Choices and Teachers' Professional Development Opportunities

Little, Judith Warren

doi:10.2307/1163783

Cited by 29 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…That suggests that many teachers had at least a further suggests our findings are robust, an chance to rethink some of the practices impression that is strengthened by Little's central to mathematics instruction. But (1989 account of the professional breadth is not the same as depth, and in this development "system." She describes vein we note again that many teachers' teachers' workshop choices as usually opportunities to learn were quite shallow.…”

Section: Impact Of Opportunities To Learn On Practicementioning

confidence: 97%

Instructional Policy and Classroom Performance: The Mathematics Reform in California

Cohen¹,

Hill²

1998

PsycEXTRA Dataset

127

151

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Educational reformers increasingly seek to manipulate policies regarding assessment, curriculum, and professional development in order to improve instruction. They assume that manipulating these elements of instructional policy will change teachers' practice, which will then improve student performance. We formalize these ideas into a rudimentary model of the relations among instructional policy, teaching, and learning. We propose that successful instructional policies are themselves instructional in nature: because teachers figure as a key connection between policy and practice, their opportunities to learn about and from policy are a crucial influence both on their practice, and, at least indirectly, on student achievement. Using data from a 1994 survey of California elementary school teachers and 1994 student California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) scores, we examine the influence of assessment, curriculum, and professional development on teacher practice and student achievement. Our results bear out the usefulness of the model: under circumstances that we identify, policy can affect practice, and both can affect student performance.

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Section: Impact Of Opportunities To Learn On Practicementioning

confidence: 97%

Instructional Policy and Classroom Performance: The Mathematics Reform in California

Cohen¹,

Hill²

1998

PsycEXTRA Dataset

127

151

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…For graduates at different places in their careers and working in different contexts, a menu approach provides more tailoring, choice, and flexibility than a traditional one-size-fits-all development experience ever could. Of course, the central challenge lies in crafting a menu of consistently high-quality offerings that stand apart from the "market driven and menu-oriented" offerings critiqued by Little (1989) as "intellectually shallow, gimmicky or simply wrong" (p. 178). In crafting this menu, programs would be wise to consider how their efforts can build on the history of successful professional development practices (e.g., Himley & Carini, 2000) and help deepen understandings of the connection between teacher learning, teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and teacher career development (Wilson & Berne, 1999).…”

Section: What's On the Menu? The Importance Of Choice And Claritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Early Career Urban Teachers' Perspectives on and Experiences in Professional Development

Anderson

Olsen

2006

Journal of Teacher Education

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Despite their interconnectedness, teacher education, teacher development, and teacher retention are often treated as discrete domains of inquiry. This article and the research on which it reports resist such compartmentalization and instead focus on relationships between teachers' pasts, presents, and futures. In particular, this qualitative study of 15 specialized teacher education program graduates examines urban teachers' perspectives on and experiences in professional development. Specific attention is paid to the role of professional development—in conjunction with other forces, including preservice preparation and workplace conditions—in shaping teachers' attitudes about their work and their professional futures. Findings illuminate four kinds of complexity underlying teachers' early career needs that are discussed and used to generate suggestions for how universities might better support teacher education program graduates to build rewarding and effective long-term careers in education.

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“…They are derived in part from studies that reveal the dominant configurations of professional development opportunity (Little, 1989(Little, , 1992b and in part from emerging research and other commentary on the demands that multiple reform initiatives present to teachers (Fine, 1992, in press;Little, 1992a;Meier, 1992).…”

Section: The Policy Dilemmamentioning

confidence: 99%

Teachers’ Professional Development in a Climate of Educational Reform

Little

1993

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

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728

393

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This essay posits a problem of fit among five streams of reform and prevailing configurations of teachers’ professional development. It argues that the dominant training-and-coaching model—focused on expanding an individual repertoire of well-defined classroom practice—is not adequate to the conceptions or requirements of teaching embedded in present reform initiatives. Subject matter collaboratives and other emerging alternatives are found to embody six principles that stand up to the complexity of reforms in subject matter teaching, equity, assessment, school organization, and the professionalization of teaching. The principles form criteria for assessing professional development policies and practices.

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District Policy Choices and Teachers' Professional Development Opportunities

Cited by 29 publications

References 1 publication

Instructional Policy and Classroom Performance: The Mathematics Reform in California

Instructional Policy and Classroom Performance: The Mathematics Reform in California

Investigating Early Career Urban Teachers' Perspectives on and Experiences in Professional Development

Teachers’ Professional Development in a Climate of Educational Reform

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