A study (The New Teacher Project) implemented a study attempting to determine what professional development strategy or strategies could be associated with improved teaching. This is what I would call an atheoretical study – measure an outcome and see what factors correlate with the outcome (see a similar approach to improving classroom management from Jacob Kounin). Neither study initially found much. Kounin went on to propose that being proactive rather than having a superior way to respond to problems seemed to be a key. In other words, create expectations and reduce “issues” within the environment associated with problem behavior.
Since the TNTP study concluded that while some teachers do become more skilled no form of professional development seemed to be associated with this growth. This “nothing works for everyone” is hardly a new educational theme, but it seems to apply to the growth of educators as well as the growth of their students.
I encourage your reading of the full report. I have paid most attention to the executive summary and the research methodology to this point. First, I am not certain those involved in teacher preparation and professional development would agree with the conclusion. I will let those who work in this area debate the finer interpretations of improvement and research methodology.
This is one of those situations in which I think more research is needed. Atheoretical approaches are inherently flawed when it comes to reaching conclusions and I tend to regard such “shotgun” methods as a way to generate hypotheses. Education and on-going development are inherent in our thinking about professional performance in many areas (education, business, health care). My immediate reaction to a failed impact in teacher performance would be to trace the connections between the training experiences and outcome measures. a) Have teachers acquired the knowledge and skills the training was intended to develop? My experience with most professional development options is that we assume things about exposure to professional development experiences we assume about no other learning contexts. For examples, we include some form of assessment in most learning contexts to determine if learning has occurred and to allow adaptation when necessary. b) Can teachers demonstrate transfer/adapt this knowledge and these skills to activities appropriate for their classroom circumstances? What does it look like when teachers attempt to implement strategies they have learned? c) What is going on a month later? The idea is to determine when the process breaks down.