Teacher Learning That Matters

International Perspectives

Mary Kooy, Klaas van Veen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136651342
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In the continuing global call for educational reforms and change, the contributors in this edited collection address the critical issue of teacher learning from diverse national contexts and perspectives. They define "teacher learning that matters" as it shapes and directs pedagogical practices with the goal of improving student learning. Student achievement is broadly and inclusively defined, beyond the test scores so often identified as the mark of "success" in the research literature.

This book weaves together major studies, research findings and theoretical orientations to represent a globalized network of inquiries into the what, how and why of teacher learning that shapes teacher skill and knowledge. Teacher learning matters on an international scale because teachers are the portals through which any initiative for change and reform is realized. Recognizing that a highly skilled teaching force is instrumental to improving student achievement adds import to generating interactive dialogue on teacher learning around the globe.

Part I

Orienting the Way on the Landscape

1 What Makes Teacher Professional Development Effective?

A Literature Review

Klaas van Veen, Rosanne Zwart and Jacobiene Meirink

INTRODUCTION

This chapter aims to explore what is currently known about the effectiveness of teachers’ professional development (PD) programs or PD interventions on the quality of teachers, their teaching and student learning. PD activities refer to a wide range of activities in which teachers participate, such as information meetings, study days, 1-day workshops and training sessions; coaching and intervision; mentoring, classroom observations, participation in a network, offsite team training sessions, book and study clubs; and research projects. Most of the current PD activities can be characterized as traditional forms of PD. Traditional refers to the way PD was organized for the last decades: mainly through lectures, 1-day workshops, seminars and conferences, which were not situated at the workplace, in which teachers played a passive role, and in which the content was not adjusted to the problems and issues in the daily teaching practice. Innovative forms refer to all those interventions in which teachers do play an active role, and the issues in their own teaching practice determine the content. Some examples are collaboration of colleagues, study and book clubs, mentoring, coaching, intervision and research by teachers. It also includes the discourse on professional learning communities in which the emphasis is on the collective responsibility of teachers for the learning of their students and insights on teaching and PD (see also the chapter of Judith Warren Little in this volume; Borko, Jacobs & Koellner, 2010).

The distinction between traditional and innovative is rather normative in the sense that innovative would be better than traditional, even although empirical evidence for this assumption is still missing, as will be shown in this review. Besides, traditional forms are still used on a large scale, although there is also an increase of mixed forms. The current discourse views PD as more effective if the teacher has an active role in constructing knowledge and collaborates with colleagues, the content relates and is situated in the daily teaching practice and the possibilities and limitations of the workplace are taken into account. However likely, these assumptions lack empirical evidence. Therefore, it is relevant to review what is currently known empirically on effective features of divergent PD interventions and on the school organizational conditions to successfully implement these interventions. So, the following questions guide the review study:

1. What is known about the effective features of interventions for PD?

2. What is known about the school organizational conditions of these PD interventions?

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Teacher PD in this chapter refers to those processes and activities designed to enhance the professional knowledge, skills and attitudes of educators so that they might, in turn, improve the learning of students (Guskey, 2000). The focus of the review are those activities explicitly designed for PD of teachers, which we describe as interventions for PD. More specifically, the focus is on those studies that report about effective features of PD.

When, however, is PD effective? Assuming the only relevant indication is increased student results, studies should focus on the relationships between the intervention and student results. If improving teacher behavior or teacher knowledge is the main goal of PD, then the focus should be relationships between the intervention and teachers’ behavior or knowledge. However, if the assumption is that a change in behavior is always the result of a change in cognition, the focus should be the relationships between the intervention and the cognition, and perhaps also on teacher behavior. The same applies to the assumption that student results are the result of a change in teacher behavior or teacher cognition. Given different aims and assumptions behind concepts of PD effectiveness, it is essential to formulate the model this review uses to understand the effectiveness of PD.

As a main theoretical and organizing frame, this study applies Desimone’s (2009) conceptual model for studying the effects of PD on teachers and students, based on an extended literature review. The model demonstrates interactive, nonrecursive relationships between (a) the critical features of PD, (b) teacher knowledge and beliefs, (c) classroom practice and (d) student outcomes (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Analytical framework for the study (based on Desimone, 2009).

The relationships between these elements are not linear per se, as often is the case, rather as integrated and dynamic (cf. Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002). For instance, research shows that a change in teaching behavior can be caused as much by a change in teacher knowledge as a change in student behavior (Guskey & Sparks, 2004). Rather, it is essential to articulate the relationships between the different elements, which can be described as the ‘theory of improvement’ (Wayne, Yoon, Zhu, Cronen & Garet, 2008; Desimone, 2009). What is the intervention supposed to do? Who has to learn what, how and why? And what elements will result in an effective PD intervention? This theory of improvement can refer to three aspects: theory of change, theory of instruction and theory of context.

Theory of change refers to the assumed relationships between the features of the PD intervention and the change in teacher knowledge and/or change in instruction. Theory of instruction focuses on student results and refers to the relationships between the features of the PD intervention, the intended changes in teacher knowledge and instruction and the expected changes in student outcomes. Theory of context refers to the school organizational conditions necessary to implement and sustain successful PD in the school or in the classrooms. As Smylie (1995) observed, and more recently Little (2006) and Imants and van Veen (2010) confirm, most PD research hardly takes the conditions of the daily workplace into account, while these conditions strongly determine the opportunities and limitations of PD interventions.

Measurement is another important factor in effective PD interventions. Despite the recent focus on evidence-based practices, interventions that are hardly explored for their effect still dominate PD practice. As Hattie (2009, p. 2) summarized the general state of educational research on these topics: “[T]he research evidence relating to ‘what works’ is burgeoning, even groaning, under a weight of such beautiful ‘try me’ ideas.” One of the reasons for this lack of evidence is the discussion about what is considered to be evidence.

Some argue that conclusions about causality and effectiveness can only be based on randomized controlled trials (cf. Slavin, 2008; Raudenbush, 2005; Wayne et al., 2008). Others argue that this approach is limited due to the underlying technocratic assumption, in which the effectiveness of the features of the intervention is the only relevant focus. Educational goals, which can strongly differ per school and teacher, can also determine effectiveness (Biesta, 2007). Others, while supporting the evidence-based approach, point to the risk of constructing lists of what works because it might “provide yet another set of recommendations devoid of underlying theory and messages” (Hattie, 2009, p. 3) or neglecting the specific features of the context.

These last issues seem to complicate the debate on effectiveness: Often it is only known what works in general, or only in very specific situations. So Raudenbush (2005) argues that randomized controlled trials are actually the only valid way to explore effectiveness, but it is not sufficient to understand why what works. Qualitative, small-scale case studies are therefore needed (cf. Little, 2006). And, as Raudenbush (2005) adds, (multiple) case studies are needed to provide working assumptions that can be tested in large-scale studies.

In addition, Verloop (2003, p. 208) notes that besides effectiveness studies, there are all kinds of educational and subject pedagogical theories and notions providing clear and insightful descriptions of educational processes that are the result of systematic thinking and research into teaching and learning. Although this body of knowledge provides no rigid empirical evidence about what works, it can be very relevant for teachers. So, to get an overview of what is known, this review will include both large-scale effectiveness studies and small-scale qualitative studies. The combination of both research approaches enables us to understand when and why and for whom an intervention is effective.

METHOD

This review focuses on those activities that are explicitly designed for PD of teachers (referred to as PD interventions). An important criterion for inclusion of studies in this review is that researchers examined the effect of the intervention. As described earlier in the theoretical framework, effectiveness can refer to different elements of the analytical framework: teacher quality, teacher classroom behavior and/or student learning.

Search Strategies and Criteria

Several search strategies were used to accomplish an extended overview of studies on the effect of PD interventions. We conducted literature searches with the use of ERIC, PsychINFO, Dissertation Abstracts, Sociological Collection, PiCarta and Google Scholar. Furthermore, we examined references of previous reviews. For this process of searching and analyzing a protocol was developed. This protocol included a list of search terms, which was partly based on previous reviews. The most important search terms were: teacher PD, teacher learning, in-service program, learning in the workplace, effects of PD, effective PD and more specific terms referring to learning activities and formats as coaching, mentoring, workshops, seminars, etc.

After an extensive exploration, it appeared that many studies conducted in the past 25 years have been summarized in a large number of review studies. Therefore, we decided to take these review studies as a starting point for the analysis. Next, we researched PD interventions conducted in the past 10 years (2000–2010) in addition to the existing overviews.

For the selection of the additional studies, the following criteria were used:

• The study needs to report on a PD intervention.

• The study needs to report on outcomes with respect to teacher learning or student learning, outcomes for teacher learning as well as student learning or even on the relation between teacher learning and student learning.

• The study has to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, in a dissertation or in a report commissioned by a renowned institute or government agency.

• Both quasi-experimental case studies and quantitative and qualitative studies are included as long as the method was elaborate and transparent enough in order to draw some conclusions about effective features. We based this decision on weighing the methodology and the ‘impact’ of the results. Studies were scored on: (a) soundness/rigidity of methodology and (b) substantial qualitative or quantitative results.

• The study needs to add to previous studies in such a way that it concerns an intervention that has not been examined yet or it concerns a new design or method.

Content Analysis of Additional Studies

Based on this first selection, we selected 11 reviews and 95 additional studies on PD interventions. We summarized all studies according to 22 aspects, such as: type of study, context, the content of the intervention, learning goals, ‘theory of improvement,’ the results, school conditions and how it can be placed in the ‘conceptual framework.’ Of the 95 additional studies it appeared that some studies did not offer enough information to learn more about effective features of the PD interventions. In the end, 34 studies on PD interventions remained for the more detailed analysis.

Input of Experts in the Field of Teacher Learning

The aim of consulting various (international) experts in this field was to make sure that no important, not (yet) published or published reports were excluded in this review. In addition, the researchers used these consults to identify the most relevant studies and to discuss the results and conclusions.

RESULTS

A General Overview

The review brings together 11 major reviews and texts and 34 additional empirical studies on effective PD that cover the last 25 years of research on PD interventions. The 11 review texts are: Blank and de las Alas (2009); Borko et al. (2010); Desimone (2009); Hawley and Valli (1999); Kennedy (1998); Knapp (2003); Little (2006); Smith and Gillespie (2007); Timperley, Wilson, Barrar and Fung (2007); Vescio, Ross and Adams (2008); and Yoon, Duncan, Lee, Scarloss and Shapley (2007). Some of these reviews refer to each other or are based on some of the same studies, but some differ strongly in focus, and also in studies they chose to include. For instance, Timperley et al. includes studies from Australia, New Zealand and Europe, which are not mentioned in the other texts. Regarding the difference in focus, Yoon et al. selected only studies that are in line with the Clearinghouse Standards, while others are les...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface: Introducing the Landscapes of Teacher Learning that Matters
• PART I. Orienting the Way on the Landscape
• PART II. Perspectives for Teacher Learning in Multiple Contexts
• PART III. Foundations for Developing the Self in Teacher Learning
• PART IV. Professional Learning for Teacher Practice
• PART V. Stepping Back by Stepping In: Reviewing the Landscape
• Contributors
• Index