Florida Master Teacher Initiative: Job-Embedded Graduate Education and Professional Development

• In Event: Roundtable Session 18.
  In Roundtable Session: Developing Teacher Leaders to Reform Schools: An International Comparative Study in London and Florida

Abstract

Program Overview:
This graduate program in Curriculum and Instruction is designed for cohorts of practicing teachers within partner districts. The program is part of larger school reform efforts in high poverty schools with a history of low performance and high teacher turnover. Specifically, the program aims to develop master teachers, teacher researchers, and teacher leaders through a 2½-year, 36-credit, job-embedded graduate degree program delivered in a blended model (online and onsite). Through various funding sources, the program is essentially cost-free for teachers if they make a five-year commitment to remain in their current schools.

Historical Development of the Program:
The graduate program began in 2005 as a result of partnership efforts among an academic department, an endowed center in the college, and school districts. Several factors led to the program, including a renewed interest by the college in Professional Development Schools and inquiry-based professional development; economic pressures to increase graduate enrolment, and general social and political pressures stemming from scepticism about the ability of colleges of education to address relevant educational issues. The program emerged as a way for the college to address the pressing needs of partner districts as they helped co-create the program.

Conceptual Framework:
The program was designed on foundational elements from teacher education, professional development, and teacher leadership. Key program features consistent with that literature base include:
• Collaboration is emphasized (Desimone, 2009; Tom, 1999). Teachers are admitted as a cohort to form a professional learning community (PLC) where ideas are shared and critiqued. In addition, courses require students to develop school improvement and professional development activities consistent with the principles of highly functioning PLCs (Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008).
• Coursework is job-embedded (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel, 2010) so courses link to daily issues, and the teachers’ classrooms serve as laboratories of practice. Each cohort is overseen by a Professor-in-Residence (PiR), a clinical faculty member who helps connect coursework to classroom work.
• There is a focus on inquiry and reflection (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Dana & Yendol-Hoppey, 2009) within every course. Teachers collect data about the impact of the pedagogy they learn in coursework and develop a portfolio to showcase learning.
• Organizational conditions which enhance leadership learning opportunities are promoted in partner schools (Muijs & Harris, 2003; York-Barr & Duke, 2004). The PiR works with school administrators to encourage opportunities for teacher leadership.

These program features serve as a unifying structure that enables participating teachers to grow as master teachers, teacher researchers, and teacher leaders.

Evaluation Efforts:
There are four recent and ongoing studies to document program impact. The first interview-based study documented teacher perspectives of the impact of the program (Ross, Adams, Bondy, Dana, Dodman & Packer, 2010). The second is a survey-based study to document teacher perceptions of program impact among a larger sample of teachers. The third and fourth studies will document impact on classroom practice using observations and impact on student achievement using standardized test scores.

Authors

• Alyson J. Adams, University of Florida

• Philip E. Poekert, University of Florida