what is professional development for teachers
Professional development — formal in-service training to upgrade the content knowledge and pedagogical skills of teachers — is widely viewed as an important means of improving teaching and learning. While many interventions include professional development, professional development was the central intervention of the two recent research and demonstration projects — the Professional Development in Reading Study (the “Reading PD study,” for short) and the Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study (the “Math PD study”) — whose findings are synthesized in this report. The studies were carried out by the American Institutes for Research and MDRC for the U.S. Department of Education. The professional development that was provided went far beyond the “one-shot” workshop approach that has been widely criticized; it instead included intensive summer institutes, follow-up group sessions, and coaching of individual teachers. The evaluations of the interventions employed random assignment design, and, as a result, they supply unusually rigorous evidence about the effects of the professional development that was offered both on instruction and on student achievement.
The impacts of both interventions were substantially less positive than had been hoped. The Reading PDstudy increased teachers’ content knowledge; the Math PD study did not. In both studies, the professional development had positive effects on some targeted instructional practices but not on others. Most critically, students of teachers who received the training scored no higher on subject-matter achievement tests than students of teachers who did not receive the training. Moreover, in the reading study, professional development that included one-on-one coaching as well as group workshops did not lead to significantly larger impacts than professional development involving just the workshops; in the mathematics study, receiving two years of professional development did not lead to better results than receiving just one year.
A number of factors likely reduced the effectiveness of the professional development and the researchers’ ability to measure that effectiveness. For example, teacher turnover in the Math PD study meant that many teachers did not receive the full dose of professional development that had been planned. And the two-year time frames of the two studies may not have allowed enough time for major changes in teaching and learning to take hold.
Nonexperimental analyses that were conducted as part of these two studies, along with other research, suggest that the theory of change underlying the studies is correct: professional development of the type that was delivered is associated with increased teacher knowledge and that teacher knowledge and improved instruction is associated with higher student test scores. But changes in teacher-related variables must be substantial — considerably larger than they were in these studies — to move the needle on student achievement even a small amount.
By themselves, the findings of the two studies do not mean that professional development efforts cannotwork. New thinking emphasizes a broader conception of teacher learning that involves all teachers in a school in a professional learning community that is engaged in a continuous and collegial cycle of learning, practice, reflection, and improvement. Randomized trials to test professional development that is reinforced within professional learning communities are in order. At the same time, in-service training should not be the only vehicle for improving student achievement.
Professional development for teachers — in-service training for the teaching force that is already in place — has become a widely accepted approach for improving teaching and learning in America’s schools. But there have been few rigorous large-scale evaluations of the effectiveness of this strategy. The Professional Development in Reading Study and the Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study discussed in this report are exceptions to this rule. Together, the studies included almost 170 elementary schools and middle schools, which were randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions. Second-grade reading teachers and seventh-grade math teachers in the studies’ treatment group schools received intensive professional development related to these subjects, while their counterparts received the professional development usually offered by their districts. The random assignment helped to ensure that the studies would provide the strongest possible evidence about the role of professional development in improving instructional practices and boosting student achievement. This report reviews the findings of the two studies and reflects on their meaning. It offers an important caution to educators and policymakers: Professional development cannot be counted on to improve outcomes for students. In both the studies examined here, the professional development — which went far beyond the “one-shot” approach that has been widely decried — had only limited effects on teachers’ knowledge and instruction and did not have an impact on student test scores. This does not mean that professional development cannot work, but only that the professional development tested here did not work. As the field advances, new approaches to promoting professional learning among teachers and learning among students must continue to be developed and tested, in the continuing search to improve the educational prospects of America’s children. After all, for the next decade or more, our children will go to school with the teaching force that is in place now. Given the central role that high-quality teaching must play in our efforts to make the nation
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Professional development for teachers — in-service training for the teaching force that is already in place — has become a widely accepted approach for improving teaching and learning in America’s schools. But there have been few rigorous large-scale evaluations of the effectiveness of this strategy. The Professional Development in Reading Study and the Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study discussed in this report are exceptions to this rule. Together, the studies included almost 170 elementary schools and middle schools, which were randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions. Second-grade reading teachers and seventh-grade math teachers in the studies’ treatment group schools received intensive professional development related to these subjects, while their counterparts received the professional development usually offered by their districts. The random assignment helped to ensure that the studies would provide the strongest possible evidence about the role of professional development in improving instructional practices and boosting student achievement. This report reviews the findings of the two studies and reflects on their meaning. It offers an important caution to educators and policymakers: Professional development cannot be counted on to improve outcomes for students. In both the studies examined here, the professional development — which went far beyond the “one-shot” approach that has been widely decried — had only limited effects on teachers’ knowledge and instruction and did not have an impact on student test scores. This does not mean that professional development cannot work, but only that the professional development tested here did not work. As the field advances, new approaches to promoting professional learning among teachers and learning among students must continue to be developed and tested, in the continuing search to improve the educational prospects of America’s children. After all, for the next decade or more, our children will go to school with the teaching force that is in place now. Given the central role that high-quality teaching must play in our efforts to make the nation