How We Learn About Teacher Learning

Abstract

This chapter examines research on professional development, or PD, focusing specifically on underlying assumptions about the nature of teaching and the nature of teacher learning. It examines PD programs according to their assumptions about what teachers need to learn, and it examines PD studies according to how and when they expect to see evidence of teacher learning. The chapter seeks to provide a broad view of how we think about teaching and teacher learning and to examine our underlying assumptions both about teaching and about how PD is expected to improve teaching. With respect to program effectiveness, the chapter raises questions about the extent to which effective PD programs can be replicated; with respect to our study designs, it raises questions about how teacher learning occurs and when and how we should expect to see program effects on teachers’ practices. The chapter also offers some suggestions for future research design.

Teachers’ learning and sense-making processes in the context of an innovation: a two year follow-up study

“…After exploring 15 teachers' personal frames of reference and their attitudes towards the innovation GUTS in two school years, we found that teachers make sense of this minimally structured innovation in very different ways. This is in line with previous studies on teacher sense-making, educational innovations, and teacher professional learning (Author et al 2010, 2017, Ketelaar et al 2012, Kennedy 2019. Schmidt and Datnow (2005) concluded that teachers' sensemaking shows greater diversity in less structured reforms than in more structured reforms.…”

“…This would help in getting information about whether or not, and to what extent teachers need support. To provide teachers more tailored on-demand structure and support and facilitation of working together with colleagues in, for example, professional learning communities or mentoring programs, might provide a low-cost and effective solution (Ketelaar et al 2012, De Neve et al 2015, Papay et al 2016, Kennedy 2019).…”

Teacher Study Groups: An Integrative Literature Synthesis

“…Our qualitative analysis provided complementary information regarding this topic: Teachers who reported less agreeable attitudes toward mandated participation in TSGs or less content knowledge of the study group’s focus (Brownell et al, 2006) were less affected by participation. This suggests that teachers experience differential impact based on coherence with individual needs and interests (Englert & Tarrant, 1995), underscoring Kennedy’s (2019) argument for considering teachers’ motivation to learn and alter their practice when making sense of PD research results.…”

“…Penuel et al (2007) suggested that coherence may be better understood as alignment with teachers’ personal goals for learning, and that the policy- and district-expectation aspects of coherence comprise part of the interpretive frames through which teachers perceive a learning opportunity to be coherent or not. In alignment with Kennedy’s (2019) emphasis on motivation, Penuel et al found that the level of coherence teachers perceived a PD to have significantly impacted their implementation of focus practices, suggesting that this factor may affect impact differently than factors such as active participation. Furthermore, Santagata et al’s (2010) RCT found that teachers for whom a PD was aligned with their lesson pacing had significantly higher implementation effects than those in a nonaligned group.…”

Policies to support teachers’ continuing professional learning

“…Rather than informing the individual teacher's CPL activities, appraisal results can also be aggregated to generate topics for collective professional development plans at the school level. This approach recognises the broader school context in which educators work and acknowledges that teachers improve most when they work alongside peers seeking to improve on similar dimensions (Johnson, Kraft and Papay, 2012 [68]; OECD, 2019 [31]).…”