Effective Professional Development: Which Factors Matter in Implementation?

Professional development;competing literacy initiatives;fit with existing district initiatives;changes in instructional practice;teaching ELL students;Education;College of Education, Health and Human Services

Groover, Ross CheneyVanDeusen-MacLeod, Susan ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Professional development;    competing literacy initiatives;    fit with existing district initiatives;    changes in instructional practice;    teaching ELL students;    Education;    College of Education, Health and Human Services;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/110310/Effective%20Professional%20Development%20-%20Which%20Factors%20Matter%20in%20Implementation.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Effective professional development is designed to produce sustainable changes in instructional methods that extend teachers’ skills and strategies to meet the needs of all the learners in their classrooms. In this case study, the researcher identified school, district and teacher factors that affected the implementation of the professional development content in participating teachers’ classrooms and found that teachers identified the support they received from instructional coaches and resource teachers as a primary factor that affected their implementation. Teachers also identified the alignment between the district’s existing literacy curriculum and functional grammar as another factor that affected their implementation of the functional grammar content.The most important factor, however, was the effects they saw on their students as a result of thefunctional grammar lessons. Elementary teachers increasingly need to adapt their instruction for teaching reading to English Language Learners (ELLs) and at-risk students for whom academic English is a second or even a third language. Professors from a local university designed and provided professional development workshops in several schools in a single school district to assist teachers with skills and strategies to address the needs of these struggling students. The workshops were based in the functional grammar approach to give teachers language to explore the syntax and semantics found in written texts with their students. The functional grammar workshops incorporated the features of effective professional development that have been identified in the research. Recommendations about designing professional development that willresult in sustainable implementation within existing classroom practices are provided.