Toward a Design for Supporting Professional Development Leader Learning

• In Event: 72.039 - Design Principles for a Pedagogy of Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives. A key aspect of supporting teachers’ learning concerns district mathematics leaders’ practices in designing for and leading high-quality professional development (PD). However, there is a limited research base regarding how to support leaders to develop such practices. In this study, we seek to elaborate a potentially revisable set of learning goals for math leaders’ learning, a set of principles to guide the design of supports for their learning, and to offer a provisional design to support the development of their PD practices.

Perspectives. Designing and leading high-quality PD entailed significant reorganization of the coaches’ existing PD practices. Therefore, in the design, we drew heavily the literature on practice-focused teacher education (e.g., Ball & Cohen, 1999; McDonald, Kazemi, & Kavanagh, 2013) because it treats the goals for teachers’ learning as complex practice and attempts to support significant reorganization of current practice.

Methods, Techniques, or Modes of Inquiry. In the context of a researcher-practitioner partnership, in 2012-2103 we conducted an initial design experiment aimed at supporting the learning of three district-based coaches responsible for supporting the learning of middle-grades mathematics teachers across a large U.S. school district. Specifically, researchers and the district director (to whom the coaches reported) collaboratively planned for an upcoming Coach PD Session, co-led a Coach PD session. The coaches then co-led the pilot Teacher PD. Members of the research team analyzed the video-recording of those sessions to inform the planning of the future Coach PD session. Informed by a retrospective analysis of the coaches’ development of PD practices (Author, under review), we examined the learning goals for math leaders’ learning, a set of principles to guide the design of supports for their learning, and a provisional design to support the development of their PD practices.

Findings. The analysis of the coaches’ practices suggests the potential of this design for informing others’ efforts to both investigate and support PD leaders’ learning. The set of learning goals for coaches includes: 1) viewing teacher learning as a progression; 2) designing supports for teachers’ learning that are informed by ongoing assessments of teachers’ current practices, are oriented towards long-term goals for teachers’ improvement of their practices, and enable teachers to attain reasonable short-term goals (Gibbons, 2013; Simon, 1995); and 3) pressing on teachers’ ideas differentially and building on their contributions when facilitating PD (Borko, Koellner, Jacobs, & Seago, 2011; Elliot et al., 2009). The principles include that the supports should 1) include sustained opportunities to work together over time (Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009); 2) be close to practice (Ball & Cohen, 1999); 3) include co-participation with accomplished others in activities that approximate the targeted practices (Lave & Wenger, 1991); 4) include pedagogies of investigation and of enactment (Grossman et al., 2009); and 5) include consistent press on the coaches’ ideas.

Significance: This study contributes to the thin research base on how to support the development of PD leaders.

Authors

• Kara J. Jackson, University of Washington - Seattle

• Paul A. Cobb, Vanderbilt University

• Jonee Wilson, Vanderbilt University

• Megan Elizabeth Webster, McGill University

• Charlotte Jean Dunlap, Vanderbilt University