Web-Based Professional Development Model to Enhance Teaching of Strategies for Online Academic Research in Middle School

High-quality professional development is needed to prepare teachers to help students learn how to conduct online academic research and meet Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. This study created and evaluated a Web-based professional development program with five instructional modules designed to prepare middle-school teachers to teach their students nine strategies for conducting academic research online. The online professional development program was specifically created to help teachers implement the previously developed online SOAR Student Toolkit curriculum with all students in inclusive classrooms. Results of a 2015–2016 pilot study conducted with 13 teachers and 477 students in sixth to eighth grades indicated that most teachers perceived the professional development program to be of high quality and relevant in helping them teach online research skills to their students. Students significantly improved online research skills after learning from trained teachers (27 percentage points improvement, from 18% at pretest to 45% at posttest).