Designing Content for Online Professional Development Around Early Language and Literacy: Preschool Teachers’ Perspectives

• In Event: Providing Preschool Teachers With Web-Mediated Professional Development in Early Language and Literacy: Promising Practices

Abstract

Perspectives and Objectives

Preschool teachers need to know how to build children’s oral language (including vocabulary and syntax), alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and writing. Many school districts and organizations are currently exploring asynchronous web-based teacher PD, as it is accessible from many locations and at any time. However, it can be challenging to engage teachers and improve practices from a distance.

This study explores teachers’ perspectives on the best ways to deliver content online, drawing from our research on the web-mediated Exceptional Coaching for Early Language and Literacy – enhanced (ExCELL-e) model. In ExCELL-e, preschool teachers in high-poverty settings complete nine online instructional modules over one academic year, videotape themselves using target strategies in their classrooms, and receive personalized feedback via Skype from an expert coach.

Teacher focus groups helped us construct the content of the web-based training. Below, we describe their perspectives on how to (a) group extensive language and literacy topics into brief but comprehensive modules, (b) select and integrate different media (e.g., text, videos, etc.), and (c) assess teachers’ understanding of content.

Methods & Data Sources

Sample. Eight expert early childhood teachers met in focus groups 6 times over one year for 2 hours each. Focus groups were also attended by 3 members of the research team.

Data collection. Before meetings, teachers read drafts of ExCELL-e modules and completed a feedback form noting helpful sections and recommending changes that would improve usability. At meetings, teachers shared and discussed this feedback. We collected forms and recorded discussion.

Coding. A researcher who did not attend focus groups collated teachers’ remarks on the feedback forms and from the discussions. Remarks were coded to identify common themes and points of disagreement around what worked to help teachers learn and why, as well as what was not effective and why.

Results

Results are summarized below, but specific teacher feedback will be presented in the full paper.

Topics. Teachers consistently argued that each module should deal with only one specific practice (e.g., holding conversations), resulting in more but shorter modules. Teachers advised frontloading vocabulary-focused content and then later showing how code-focused practices could naturally reinforce vocabulary.

Media. Teachers uniformly agreed that videos were preferable to text. Of greatest benefit, they argued, were videos of best practices; however, they specified that these videos need to explicitly and briefly show desired behaviors. They also argued for replacing introductory paragraphs with narrated videos in which a speaker read the text over scenes of classrooms.

Assessments: Teachers reported that embedding multiple-choice and short-answer assessments into the content motivated their comprehension and clarified main points.

Significance

As effective programs move to scaling up their interventions, web-based PD will become more common. These findings illuminate how to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of PD content delivered via the web.

Authors

• Annemarie H. Hindman, Temple University

• Barbara Wasik, Temple University

• Kandia Lewis, Temple University

• Carol Scheffner Hammer, Temple University