Using virtual teacher PD to support implementation of a historical literacy curriculum

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims to explore how teachers in a large, diverse district could use a complex adolescent literacy curriculum, and it coincided with the start of the coronavirus 2019 pandemic, also a time of great upheaval for this nation. The authors and district partners collaboratively designed document sets that could help students explore socially complex historical topics with discipline-specific reading and writing support. These challenges led to fully virtual PD and redesigned cognitive tools and lesson materials that could be used in a fully distanced learning environment.Design/methodology/approachPD and data collection were ongoing and iterative, as the authors' goals were to understand variability in teachers' understanding and how the social unrest in the nation and the need for distance learning would influence their application of our curriculum. Data sources included teacher artifacts, interviews and implementation surveys and anonymized student work samples. The third author wrote memos during webinars and district meetings. The authors employed a grounded theory approach to analyze teachers’ evolving understandings of how to teach students to make judgments, their lesson differentiation and their attention to social justice issues.FindingsTeachers who attended the authors' online PD increased their knowledge of the authors' cognitive apprenticeship (CA) approach to instruction, demonstrating more sophisticated understandings of important historical thinking skills and the need to provide students with explicit instruction and appropriate cognitive scaffolds. By the end of the year, teachers also showed ease in using new technological platforms and a more flexible use of disciplinary thinking scaffolds in ways the authors hoped. Finally, teachers in the authors' sample (and their students) frequently made connections between topics and sources in the authors' curriculum and ongoing societal problems (such as systemic racism) in this nation.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors' original sample of teachers was over 70; however, this number eventually fell to nine teachers (about 12.5% of the eligible participants) due to many ongoing challenges (e.g. teaching while parenting) during this time period. The authors note that teachers who remained engaged with the authors had over 10 years of experience and all but one had at some point been in a leadership position such as a team lead or department head. It is possible that experience teachers found on the authors' curriculum intervention to be too challenging to implement during the pandemic.Practical implicationsOnline PD can be successful when sessions focus on content that teachers will use with students. We provided video models showing teachers how to teach historical reading and writing using the authors' tools and supports authors' platform. Although brief, the authors gave teachers opportunities for collaborative practice during webinars, and time to share challenges related to virtual teaching. In return, teachers shared what was working for them and allowed the authors to use anonymized student materials as the basis for subsequent materials for teaching students to make historical judgments.Social implicationsAll students, including those with learning or attentional disabilities/difficulties, emergent bilingual students, underrepresented students or marginalized students, must learn to grapple with complex historical and political information. Doing so will support their ability to make sense of conflicting and/or politicized information that pervades the media today and to judge for themselves what counts as evidence and truth.Originality/valueAlthough there are a small number of teachers, this study shows that a strong research partnership between a university and district office can support the successful implementation of a complex historical literacy curriculum that allows students to explore social justice issues while learning important disciplinary literacy skills. Future work will share student learning outcomes.