From Professional Development to Responsive Teaching for English Language Learners

• In Event: Helping Teachers to Help English Learners: Initial Findings From Three Studies of Sustained Professional Development for Teachers

Abstract

Assessing variations in teacher professional development in relation to actual implementation in the classroom and student outcomes remains a challenge. This presentation presents findings from an ongoing RCT study on the impact of the Instructional Conversation (IC) pedagogy for improving English language learners’ (ELL) achievement. The IC model is being implemented in over 20 schools, with over 80 teachers in a five-year study. This study involves English language learners from 19 treatment and 20 control classrooms in the 3rd and 5th grades. The IC randomized controlled trial provides experimental teachers with a yearlong professional development practice year before entering the efficacy trial. We report on the challenges to implementation of IC by using video and other data to ascertain the extent to which variations prevail in this approach to EL instruction.

The IC is most consistent with the cognitive sciences literature (Bransford et al., 2006) and cultural historical theory (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986). The main stumbling block to the learning of content is not necessarily a content problem but possibly a consequence of inadequate teaching skills that in our IC model are mediated by responsive language activity, modeling and participatory learning opportunities.

ELL students often do not encounter higher-level concepts and operations with responsive mediated assistance. The literature linking student engagement, affective aspects and test performance help understand academic development in general and the learner’s internal processes. The Instructional Conversation (IC) is a classroom pedagogy that enables teachers to focus teaching through small-group dialogue with students which has proven successful with English language learners (ELLs).

Findings indicate differences in student talk from the treatment teachers’ baseline to the end of the professional development year were significant. The first year results show that the 25 treatment teachers provided significantly more student time in the final video (M=.68, S=1.25) than the baseline video (M=.56, S=1.38), t(24)= 2.830, p= .009, α = .05 whereas the control group did not. A similar pattern held with greater student talk in the experimental group at the end of the first year relative to controls.

The study is significant in providing new perspectives in assessing teacher quality and the implementation of the IC pedagogy in with preliminary student achievement outcomes from the initial phase of a randomized control trial. It will provide the most recent data on the IC approach and its implementation since its effectiveness was reported in the What Works Clearinghouse in 2007. Challenges in the implementation of professional development and measuring fidelity of implementation are reported.

Author

• Pedro R. Portes, University of Georgia