Toward Contextualized Inquiry Models for Teacher Education and Professional Development

• In Event: Examining the Impact of Teacher Inquiry as a Professional Development Tool

Abstract

This study analyzed how five writing teachers supplemented their districts’ data-driven professional development models (which focused on the analysis of student test score data) with a more contextualized inquiry process: lesson study. For two years, participants engaged in nine lesson study cycles focused on teaching and learning writing across their culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse middle school classrooms. This study highlighted how participants’ collaborative analysis of observational and student work data fostered broadened and integrated approaches to teaching writing. Findings suggested that data-driven inquiry cycles which include varied notions of what counts as data for data-driven instruction-- beyond test score analysis and into the classroom activities of teachers and students--provides a wider range of information to enhance pedagogical development.

Author

• Shannon Marie Pella, University of California - Davis