A Framework for Professional Development

Based on both our conceptual framework and review of the literatures on teacher learning and professional development, we arrived at the following framework for professional development in English language arts:

First, if we wish to engage teachers as active, participatory, and thoroughly professional learners, we need to involve them in meaningful problem-defining and problem-solving activity, in our case, instructional development. Thus, instead of offering "professional development" as our mode of implementation (predetermining and setting what teachers don’t know and need to know), our focus is on engaging them as reflective practitioners examining learning and performance – their students’ and their own. This activity of instructional development provides teachers with not only a sense of purpose, but also with agency, where their efforts can make real change in curriculum as well as instruction – and in how students do. It provides the best context for professional learning as well as a supportive environment within which to take the risks necessary for growth and change.

A direct focus on improving student achievement has been an important element in recent models for successful professional development (Hawley & Valli, 1999; Sykes, 1999). It serves several important functions: 1) It provides a common, shared goal that can be addressed from different perspectives by all participants in the Partnership; 2) It provides the "dissonance" (Thompson & Zeuli, 1999) necessary to motivate change, by highlighting problems in student achievement; and 3) It provides a continuing reference point against which all participants can monitor progress.

If we wish teachers to become engaged in and remain active participants in their own professional learning, the problems that are considered should be based in their most critical concerns and built on and into the day-to-day work of teaching. Thus, instead of offering teachers workshops and talk about what works elsewhere and why, we engage them in locating their own major problems regarding curriculum, instruction and student learning, use videotapes and written accounts of other teachers as cases (similar to what Schoenbach and Greenleaf [2000] call literacy learning cases) – as objects of study to help them analyze ways others have approached similar problems (with similar students), and use meetings as times for teachers to reflect upon their own as well as others’ practices. The use of case materials documenting both classroom activities and student learning has played an important part in recent professional development initiatives (cf. Shoenbach & Greenleaf, 2000; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Merseth, 1996) because such cases are rooted in teachers’ practice but provide an opportunity for the reflection, analysis, and alternative perspectives that are necessary if teachers are to reconceive the possibilities of practice.

Thus, instead of focusing on teachers as individuals, we need to help develop a professional community, both within the school and at greater distance. The community should be made up of: 1) colleagues within the school who work as partners in learning; 2) expert teachers and administrators from around the country who have worked successfully with similar students in similar localities, who could serve as more distant colleagues; 3) university-based colleagues who have done research in related areas; and 4) facilitators who know the work of the Center and the field of literacy. The community is built on the notion of mixed expertise, where members of the community with particular knowledge and experience can be called upon to provide guidance and support when relevant. Teachers’ knowledge as well as consultant knowledge are perceived to be different, but equally essential, in solving the problem of improving student performance in particular schools. Opportunities are provided for participants in the local and more distant communities to interact face-to-face, electronically, and by video conferences.

The Center provides relevant knowledge for teachers to use to help them reflect on their practice and their students’ learning – frameworks for thinking about the various domains within the English language arts and the varieties of approaches to teaching them. Each of the six areas featured in the Knowledge Base for Instructional Development has a supporting theoretical and research base (conceptual tools that can be drawn upon in reflection and analysis of practice), and a wide variety of ways in which they can be enacted (pedagogical tools). We use videotapes and other case materials from classrooms we have studied (schools with similar student bodies, economically as well as in terms of race and ethnicity) to help teachers examine a variety of ways in which the emphases are carried out, as well as things that may prevent them from occurring. These materials are available as resources for teachers to draw upon in their instructional development activities. They serve as discussion starters, for teachers to talk about and reflect upon, to relate to activities in their own classes, to adapt and improve upon, and to try in their own classrooms. Examination of relevant standards and curriculum and knowledge underlying the various high stakes tests and the content features included provide ways to focus on and rethink the conceptual tools, knowledge and skills the students need. Further, various case materials are used to stimulate discussion and reflection on effective (and ineffective) ways to teach and assess this content learning.

While an initial institute (preferably in summer) marks a beginning of instructional development activity, teachers have opportunities to reflect on their ongoing practice both with their colleagues and with an instructional facilitator (coach) who visit their school once or twice a month to meet with individuals and groups of teachers, visit classrooms, and support the reflective enterprise. Partnership activities support a continuous process of growth through reflection and self-examination. Such reflection is nourished by helping teachers develop a wide variety of sources of information on ways they can gain greater insight into what is going on in their classrooms. Some of this is offered directly and through discussion, in group meetings among the teachers and facilitator. Some is offered by various members of the larger community in the form of new conceptual tools teachers can use to look at their classrooms in specific ways – providing new "lenses" for thinking about curriculum, instruction, and assessment. (For example, specific frameworks for thinking about the conceptual demands of student writing assignments can be used by the teachers to think about the assignments they are giving, as well as to think about the strengths and weaknesses of their students’ performance.) Some come from systematic looks at student performance on the range of classroom activities as well as on the periodic Partnership assessments. Teachers are encouraged to focus not only on the skills and knowledge related to the high stakes tests but also the skills and knowledge to perform more highly literate reading and writing tasks. Teachers are encouraged to reflect not only on what they know and are learning, but on the kinds of professional information they need.

If Partnership teachers have legitimate agency for the instructional development activities they undertake, they must also have responsibility for assessing their own progress. The Partnership includes a number of activities to support such assessment. First, teachers are encouraged to keep journals in which they reflect on the choices they have made and the problems and opportunities they encounter. Such journals are an important vehicle for supporting what Schon (1983) calls reflection on as well as in action. Second, they are also encouraged to focus on different dimensions of student achievement as another way to assess needed areas of instructional development: what are the range of skills that students are developing in each area of literacy, including in particular the extent to which lower-achieving students are learning to participate effectively along with their higher-achieving peers. Third, Partnership teachers are encouraged to consider the implications of various external assessments – the results of the achievement batteries that all students take to monitor their achievement, as well as school- or state-based external examinations. Finally, Partnership facilitators engage in regular discussion of their observations of curriculum and instruction.  Throughout the Partnership, teachers are supported to reflect on their own practice and to use their reflections on their progress as guides for setting new needs, goals, and plans – a process of reflection and renewal that should continue with or without Partnership coaches.

A comprehensive reference list is available.