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6 Professional Development Programs
Pages 115-146

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From page 115...
... While the professional development landscape sprawls, it is also disjointed and incoherent; school districts rarely have professional development systems that are aligned with the curriculum and/or opportunities that offer teachers increasingly more advanced study over time (e.g., Wilson et al., 2011)
From page 116...
... Out comes for teachers include the three domains enumerated in Chapter 5: teachers' capacity to adapt instruction to the needs of diverse learners, their content knowledge, and their pedagogical content knowledge and actual instructional practices. While the assumption often is made that teachers who develop professional knowledge and practices in each of these domains will have students who learn more, we also were interested in the extent to which the research literature demonstrates improvements in student outcomes.
From page 117...
... analyzed survey responses of a cross-sectional sample of 1,027 mathematics and science teachers who participated in the Eisenhower Professional Development Program and identified three core features and three structural features of effective professional development. The core features were (1)
From page 118...
... nominated five core features and suggested that they be used to guide research on professional development. We refer to this as the consensus model of effective professional development: • content focus -- learning opportunities for teachers that focus on subject matter content and how students learn that content; • active learning -- can take a number of forms, including observing expert teachers, followed by interactive feedback and discussion, reviewing student work, or leading discussions; • coherence -- consistency with other learning experiences and with school, district, and state policy; • sufficient duration -- both the total number of hours and the span of time over which the hours take place; and • collective participation -- participation of teachers from the same school, grade, or department.
From page 119...
... In two recent reviews of science professional development (Capps et al., 2012; van Driel et al., 2012) , most of the programs studied reflected the consensus model.
From page 120...
... reviewed 43 studies of professional development in technology-enhanced, inquiry-oriented science, focusing on how the professional development enhanced teachers' support for students' pursuit of scientific investigations. Reflecting the trend in the general literature on professional development, few studies included measures of all three outcomes for teachers (their knowledge and beliefs about adapting instruction to students' backgrounds and needs and about pedagogical content knowledge, and their practice)
From page 121...
... Of the 22 studies reviewed by Capps and colleagues (2012) , 8 report enhanced teacher knowledge as a result of professional development focused on inquiry; however, only 6 of those include measures of teacher knowledge (content knowledge or knowledge of process skills or inquiry)
From page 122...
... examined upper-elementary teachers' pedagogical content knowledge related to student thinking and the coherence of science activities and ideas. The researchers used a video analysis task that engaged teachers in watching video clips of science lessons pre-, mid- and postprogram.
From page 123...
... . The pooled effect size for the relationship between professional development and teacher instruction was more pronounced than that for professional development and student learning, leading the researchers to conjecture that professional development may have a stronger effect on teacher practice than on student learning.
From page 124...
... found that participation in professional development programs in science was positively related to teachers' attitudes toward science instruction and their perceptions of their preparedness with respect to pedagogical and science content knowledge (see Box 6-1)
From page 125...
... Banilower and colleagues (2007) analyzed the results for 18,657 teachers across 42 different projects involving science teachers in grades K-8 to examine the impact on teachers' attitudes, perceptions of preparedness, and classroom practices of professional development that was content based, situated in class room practice, and sustained over time.
From page 126...
... Changes in Student Outcomes As noted above, few studies of professional development for science teachers have measured student outcomes, although this trend is gradually shifting. Nine of the studies reviewed by Capps and colleagues (2012)
From page 127...
... . This year-long professional development program is organized around a conceptual framework that focuses teachers' attention on analyzing science teaching and learning through two lenses: the Science Content Storyline Lens and the Student Thinking Lens (see Box 6-2 for further detail)
From page 128...
... This framework provides strong program coherence by focusing teachers' attention on a small set of core teaching strategies and supporting them in analyzing and understanding these strategies and using them well. The program's goals are to deepen teach ers' science content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge about student thinking and about science content storylines in two content areas in the teachers' curriculum.
From page 129...
... Results from a quasi-experimental study (Roth et al., 2011) of 48 teachers, half of whom participated in the STeLLA Program, showed that, in comparison with teachers who received professional development focused only on deepen ing science content knowledge, program participants developed deeper science content knowledge and stronger abilities to use pedagogical content knowledge to analyze science-teaching practice.
From page 130...
... The researchers employed a randomized controlled research design to study the impact of Transformative Professional Development (TPD) on teacher practice and student learning in a high-needs urban school district.
From page 131...
... •  he control group received no treatment during the initial study year, but T participants were offered a delayed opportunity to receive the professional development. All three intervention models improved both teachers' and students' scores on tests of science content knowledge relative to the scores of teachers and students in the control group.
From page 132...
... English language learners' written justifications did not show significant effects during the study year; a year later, however, those whose teachers participated in the intervention that entailed looking at student work had marginally higher scores relative to the control group of English language learners. Benefits and Challenges of Professional Development Programs in Science Professional development programs in science offer a number of benefits.
From page 133...
... A program of 90 hours of professional development in science is meaningless if a teacher's principal discourages her from teaching science so as to place more emphasis on English language arts and mathematics. Teachers who participate in science professional development programs outside of their school also may feel isolated as they try to implement new teaching strategies, lacking colleagues at their school who can help them plan, debrief, and problem solve.
From page 134...
... Teachers then return to their classrooms to implement some of the instructional approaches they have learned about, during which time they have opportunities to talk with one another and with the professional development providers about their progress. Findings from those studies that employed a strong design and connected the dots in the teacher learning model depicted in Figure 6-1 by studying the relationships among teachers' opportunities to learn, teacher learning outcomes, and student learning outcomes suggest a preliminary list of program characteristics that lead to improved student learning in science and go beyond the consensus model: • Teachers' science content learning is intertwined with pedagogi cal activities such as analysis of practice (Heller et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2011)
From page 135...
... . • Analytical tools support collaborative, focused, and deep anal ysis of science teaching, student learning, and science content (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011)
From page 136...
... ONLINE PROGRAMS The explosion of online learning opportunities has led to increased interest in new venues for teacher learning. Professional development designers and leaders have begun exploring the potential of online learning to meet the need for high-quality experiences that are scalable and accessible to large numbers of teachers, flexible enough to meet varying needs and limited schedules, and cost-effective to produce and obtain (Cavanaugh and Dawson, 2010; National Research Council, 2007; Whitehouse et al., 2006)
From page 137...
... Pedagogically, the approaches employed in the online programs studied took a largely social constructivist approach, which included problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, mentoring, and communities of practice. Effectiveness of Online Professional Development A body of research has examined the effectiveness of the online professional development approach in engaging teachers, building community, and improving teacher learning.
From page 138...
... Thus, the second condition may more appropriately be considered a hybrid approach to professional development. Researchers measured teachers' beliefs and knowledge, coded videos of their classroom practices with particular lessons from the curriculum, and measured student learning on a multiple-choice test about environmental science.
From page 139...
... . A pilot study of modules created by the National Science Teachers Association to improve the science content knowledge of teachers compared an online-only form with a hybrid form that included a 6-hour inperson workshop in addition to the online segment, which was designed to take a total of 6-10 hours (Sherman et al., 2008)
From page 140...
... However, the research base is not yet strong enough to support claims about the relationships between online professional development and changes in teachers' knowledge or practice and their students' learning. Other research on online learning across K-12 and higher-education settings suggests that effective online learning is the product of high-quality program design and implementation, supportive contexts, and understanding of how learner characteristics interact with technology (Means et al., 2014)
From page 141...
... A growing body of evidence also traces the effects of professional development programs on teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and student learning. Effective professional development programs provide teachers with opportunities to practice and reflect on new instructional strategies, to analyze student thinking and student work, and to analyze examples of the target instructional practices.
From page 142...
... The impact of the National Science Foundation's local systemic change through teacher enhancement initiative. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44(3)
From page 143...
... . An Overview of Current Findings from Empirical Research on Online Teacher Professional Development.
From page 144...
... . Overcoming a learning bottleneck: Inquiry professional development for secondary science teachers.
From page 145...
... . Teachers' pedagogical content knowledge of scien tific argumentation: The impact of professional development on K-12 teachers.
From page 146...
... . The effects of professional development on science teaching practices and classroom culture.


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