Teachers’ Goal Orientation Profiles and Participation in Professional Development Activities

Participation in professional development activities is important for teachers to continuously improve their knowledge and skills. However, teachers differ in their attitude towards learning activities. This paper examined how different goal orientation profiles are related to participation in professional development activities (acquiring information and asking feedback). To this end, we conducted latent profile analysis based on a sample of 984 teachers in vocational education. Five profiles were identified: diffuse (50.1%), moderate learning (12.3%), high avoidance (10.9%), performance oriented (15.9%) and success oriented (10.7%). Furthermore, means of acquiring information and asking feedback from teachers were compared across the profiles. Teachers with a success-oriented profile (high learning and performance approach goals) scored significantly higher while teachers with a high-avoidance profile scored significantly lower on asking for feedback and acquiring information. Exploration of background characteristics indicated that age, gender and work experience outside education were related to the goal orientation profiles. Our findings show that goal orientation profiles can be used to explain individual differences in teachers’ propensity to engage in professional development activities.     

Development in South African Primary Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Work with In-Service Teachers

This paper focuses, empirically, on the developments seen in a group of South African early grades’ mathematics teacher educators in the course of a university-provincial education department partnership project. This project sought to support the district Mathematics Subject Advisers to support, in turn, teachers to implement an intervention consisting of a sequence of four lessons focused on multiplicative reasoning. Outcomes based on pre- and post-tests administered by the Subject Advisers suggested substantial pre- to post-test improvement at the student level. Subject Adviser observations and reflections pointed to successes in engendering more dialogic conversations between mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators focused on mathematics and its teaching and learning. The ‘double move’ of increasing overlap between the subject adviser and teacher communities, coupled with evidence that implementing the intervention had enabled the Subject Advisers to develop their mathematical and pedagogical understandings, provides a useful way of considering development in the capacity of mathematics teacher educators to support mathematics teaching and learning.

     

Science Teachers’ Professional Development about Science Centers

Science & Education - The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to delve into professional development (PD) of science teachers’ views about nature of science (NOS) throughout...     

Teachers’ Continuing Professional Development and Higher Education

This paper presents and analyses data gathered from a survey of teachers in a range of secondary school English departments. It seeks to establish the ways in which teachers perceive their subject knowledge Continuing Professional Development (CPD) needs and the ways in which they would like to engage with Higher Education (HE) English as part of their CPD. It also explores teachers’ reasons for wishing to undertake such study, and the ways in which they believe such studies could contribute to their development. Finally, it goes on to consider some of the constraints on CPD and the possible implications of this for Higher Education Institutions. The interface between schools and HE has, historically, been limited. However, engagement in CPD is one of the most significant ways in which dialogue between secondary and HE teachers of English can be fruitfully established.     

Supporting Kindergarten Teachers’ Mathematics Instruction and Student Achievement Through a Curriculum-Based Professional Development Program

This study investigates the impacts of a year-long professional development program on Kindergarten teachers’ beliefs and practices and the association of these changes with student achievement in mathematics measured by curriculum-based instruments. Although teacher content knowledge was not statistically significantly different before and after participation in the program, changes in teachers’ beliefs and practices were both noticed: a trend towards discovery/connectionist orientation and student-centered practices. Teachers’ gain scores on a measure of mathematics content knowledge was positively related to the linear growth rate of student achievement.     

Teachers’ Willingness to Adopt Nature of Science Activities Following a Physical Science Professional Development

The major science education reform documents emphasize the need for K-12 students to have a robust understanding of nature of science (NOS), and inservice teachers consequently need to develop their NOS teaching repertoires. This study investigated the extent to which science teachers were willing to adopt new strategies and activities for teaching NOS in their classrooms. The participants were 36 elementary, middle, and high school teachers who were completing a year-long physical science professional development (PD) that included NOS instruction. Data sources consisted of surveys (teachers’ NOS views, teaching practices), collected work, and responses to post-PD follow-up questions. The professional development course was successful in that teachers incorporated many of these strategies and activities into their own practice. This study also endeavored to identify factors that facilitated the adoption of these new approaches to teaching NOS. While personal characteristics such as pre- or post-PD NOS understandings, NOS gains, and grade level taught were not related to the number of NOS activities incorporated, teachers from suburban and rural schools were significantly more likely to implement NOS activities.     

Elementary School Teachers’ Use of Technology During Mathematics Teaching

Various educational technologies have been advanced as potential vehicles to transform teaching and learning. Still, research studies have documented that primary school teachers struggle to integrate technology in meaningful ways. This article presents the findings of a year-long study in which the author frequently observed three primary school teachers’ enactments of technology into their mathematics teaching. Each teacher was observed between 25 and 30 times during the school year. The types of technologies used as well as the types of mathematical tasks and problems that participants posed while teaching with technology were inductively analyzed. Inductive qualitative analyses indicated that participants’ technology use focused on presentation technologies such as the document camera or interactive whiteboard more than computer-based technologies or interactive activities. Further, teachers varied widely in their enacted pedagogies while integrating technology, and two participants demonstrated more frequent enactments of learner-centered pedagogies toward the end of the school year. Implications for researching teachers’ use of technology in the future are also shared.     

Associate Teachers’ Perceptions of Effective Mentorship Professional Development

Associate (mentor) teachers are essential partners in guiding teacher candidates into the profession; however, little training is offered for this critical role. This study explored, through the lens of self-determination theory, types of support and delivery most useful for successful mentorship during practicum. Online surveys and invited interviews targeted at associate teachers for one teacher preparation program (TPP) were used to gather data, with subsequent ordinal scale data display and theme derivation. Based on 281 survey respondents and 13 interviews, results highlighted specific TPP supports and the need for other partners (i.e., federations, boards) to engage more actively in supporting associate teachers.     

Curriculum Discourse and Foreign Language Teachers’Professional Development

The significance and status of the teachers’professional development make the education system and the society pay more and more attentions.The article elaborates the internal contact of curriculum discourse and teachers’professional development from a few respects such as the rationality of curriculum discourse,the long-term nature of the teachers’professional development and many factors affecting the teachers’professional development.The article also analyzes the external and internal factors influencing Tibet foreign language teachers’professional development,and puts forward the corresponding countermeasures in the light of these problems.     

Expansion of Biology Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) During a Long-Term Professional Development Program

Experienced teachers possess a unique teaching knowledge comprised of an inter-related set of knowledge and beliefs that gives direction and justification to a teacher’s actions. This study examined the expansion of two components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of three in-service teachers in the course of a professional development program aimed at designing new teaching and learning materials suggested by the teachers themselves. The research presents an enlargement of previous PCK representations by focusing on a detailed representation of two main PCK domains: teaching and learning, including ten PCK components that emerged in the course of data analysis. This representation enabled revealing the unique PCK held by each teacher and to characterize the expansion of the two components of the participating teachers’ PCK during the long-term professional development program. Retention of major parts of the expanded PCK a year after termination of the program implies that designing and implementing new teaching and learning materials based on the teachers’ experiences, needs, and knowledge in a workshop format accompanied by biology and science education courses might provide a powerful means for PCK expansion. We recommend that designers of professional development programs be aware of the unique PCK held by each teacher in order to promote meaningful professional development of each teacher. Moreover, the PCK representations that were identified in the course of this study enabled clarifying the “orientation toward teaching science” category of PCK which appears to be unclear in current literature.     

Professional Communities in the Context of Teachers’ Professional lives: A Case of Mathematics Specialists

We describe an urban school initiative aimed at teachers’ professional development with the goal of increasing their mathematics content knowledge and helping them improve their practice. In the lowest performing schools, mathematics specialists were employed to teach only mathematics in upper-elementary grades (ages 9–12). One aspect of this initiative was a provision of time and space for the formation of site-based professional communities that were intended to support teachers in trying to implement changes in their practice. Teachers’ professional communities developed at some sites and not at others. In this analysis, we explore the conditions that afforded or constrained the development of teachers’ professional communities. Using two contrasting school sites as examples, we describe five aspects of the teachers’ individual and collective professional lives that influenced the emergence of teachers’ professional communities.     

Virtual Professional Learning Communities: Teachers’ Perceptions of Virtual Versus Face-to-Face Professional Development

Research suggests that professional development that engages teachers in instructional inquiry over an extended time through collaborative professional learning communities (PLCs) is effective in improving instruction and student achievement. Still, most professional development is offered as short-duration workshops that are not effective in changing practice. Barriers to the implementation of PLCs include lack of shared meeting time and a shortage of teachers who share the same subject areas or common goals and interests. Convening teachers from multiple districts can alleviate this problem, but teachers are reluctant to travel for meetings due to time and cost restraints. Video-conferencing software offers a solution to these barriers while serving to foster the sense of community needed for PLCs to be effective. The researchers describe the use of Virtual PLCs in which two groups of teachers met monthly for one school year to collaboratively analyze evidence collected as part of their teacher inquiry plans. With help from a facilitator, these groups developed a relationship similar to other groups meeting face-to-face as part of the same professional development program. Analysis of the reflections of teacher-participants and facilitators revealed that teachers prefer face-to-face meetings, but that the virtual and face-to-face meetings provided teachers with similar social interactions in the PLC experience. The findings suggest that teachers perceive videoconferencing as an effective tool for facilitating PLCs when distance and time are practical barriers to face-to-face meetings. Practical considerations for developing and facilitating virtual PLCs are also discussed.     

South African Primary Mathematics Teachers’ Experiences and Perspectives About Lesson Study

This study aims to investigate the perspectives of primary school teachers in South Africa, who participated in a Lesson Study (LS) project, on this professional development process and about their professional learning. The study followed a mixed approach, with data collected through a questionnaire, followed up by interviews. A novel approach in this study was to source teachers’ experiences of the individual stages of LS as well as of the integrated process. Teachers’ perspectives on LS were categorised into 5 themes: collaboration — commitment and the free rider effect, confidence issues, teachers’ knowledge and skills, misconceptions about the LS approach, and external issues including concerns over time of teachers and learners, systemic challenges and school management. Using teachers’ individual and focus group inputs in the questionnaire and the interviews, we report about their experiences.

     

The Feasibility of Using Virtual Professional Development to Support Teachers in Making Data-Based Decisions to Improve Students’ Writing

Rubrics can be used to give students targeted feedback on their writing and, therefore, teachers should be able to use them as a type of formative assessment to guide writing instruction. This article describes an exploratory study of how three teachers provided instruction for fourth, fifth, and seventh graders with learning disabilities and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in using a technology-based graphic organizer (TBGO) to compose persuasive essays. Given professional development inclusive of online modules, long-range plans, and virtually facilitated professional learning communities, the teachers used a digital dashboard to (a) monitor students’ writing progress with a genre-specific analytic rubric, (b) target a specific instructional skill, and (c) document their instructional decision(s). The article illustrates how educators can effectively use genre-specific writing rubrics in practice to make data-driven decisions about student writing.     

How Does Ongoing Task-Focused Mathematics Professional Development Influence Elementary School Teachers’ Knowledge, Beliefs and Enacted Pedagogies?

This study examined how a task-focused, year-long mathematics professional development program influenced elementary school teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices. Participants completed 84 h of professional development over 13 months that were focused on exploring, modifying and implementing cognitively-demanding mathematical tasks. Using a multi-methods approach, teacher-participants completed pre- and post-measures of mathematical knowledge for teaching, teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics, and teachers’ self-reports of enacted instructional practices. Further, three teacher-participants were randomly selected to be observed 3 times over the course of the school year. Data analyses indicated that the professional development had a statistically significant positive impact on participants’ mathematical knowledge for teaching, use of student-centered instructional practices, and beliefs towards mathematics as a subject area. Further, the observed teachers enacted some high-level mathematical tasks and questions, but these were more visible at the end of the study compared to the beginning of the study. Implications for future work are also shared.     

Development of Preservice Teachers’ Ability to Critique and Adapt Inquiry-based Instructional Materials

Current standards emphasize student engagement with inquiry practices. However, implementing inquiry instruction is a formidable challenge for teachers as they often lack models for using and adapting inquiry-based instructional materials. Teacher education programs can provide scaffolded contexts for developing teachers’ ability to critique, adapt, and design inquiry-based materials. We describe a qualitative study of 17 preservice teachers enrolled in two consecutive science methods courses. The study characterizes the development of preservice teachers’ ability to critique and revise instructional materials. Our findings suggest that teachers improved in their ability to critique lesson plans and to suggest revisions that would make them more inquiry oriented. In particular, the teachers’ critiques and revisions increased in sophistication after engaging in instructional design activities during the second methods course.