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Currently Skimming:

The Need for Research on Online Teacher Professional Development
Pages 24-28

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From page 24...
... "The reality is that we know very little about what characterizes effective teacher professional development," said Hilda Borko. "If we want to be able to gather the information necessary to guide professional development, we have a big task ahead of us." Many additional questions remain to be addressed by research on online teacher professional development (OTPD)
From page 25...
... One difficulty is that standardized tests based on multiple choice and other short-answer problems typically are not sensitive enough to measure changes in content knowledge among either teachers or their students. "It is challenging," noted Marcia Linn, "because the standardized measures 1 The manuscript for this paper is currently available at http://www.colorado.
From page 26...
... professional development itself caused or enabled or encouraged changes in teachers' knowledge and dispositions and beliefs and values," said Deborah Smith, "and how that then worked in their classrooms to bring about a different kind of understanding for children." Such measures would be especially valuable at the state level, since they could help meet the demands of accountability with assessments of core objectives in education. The development of more sophisticated forms of assessment can address some of these challenges, workshop participants noted.
From page 27...
... People are gathering data at the checkout counter about what is disappearing and what is appearing." Online technologies do not solve the problem of assessment for either classroom learning or professional development, Dede said. But they offer creative ways of gathering both formative and summative information that can inform the design of educational programs.
From page 28...
... More broadly, the role of teachers in shaping online professional development needs to be a focus of research, according to Bruce Alberts. "One thing we badly need research on, which I don't think has been directly addressed here, is exactly how to give teachers a voice, an appropriate voice, at school district levels, in what professional development they get.


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