Collaborative Cultures and Professional Learning: A Perspective on the Teaching and Learning International Survey

• In Event: 60.050 - Multiple Perspectives on "What the Teaching and Learning International Survey Tells Us"

Abstract

The objective of this presentation is to present findings from data analysis of teacher professional development and collaborative practices from the TALIS 2013 data set and to highlight the implications for policymakers and practitioners. The findings are presented from the perspective of our organizational mission: educational policy that enhances learning opportunities for particularly under-served learners and that distributes educational resources equitably. We show that collaborative practices and professional learning are associated with more active teaching practices and support teacher self-efficacy.
Developing learners with the competencies to thrive in modern knowledge economies requires opportunities for them to develop higher-order skills, such as problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, team work, and collaboration. This in turn requires continual teacher professional learning to update and extend their own knowledge and competencies and those of the profession (Schleicher, 2012).
Previous studies have shown that professional learning is most effective in improving teachers’ instructional practice and contributing to student learning when it is continuous and sustained and fosters teacher collaboration that can promote school-level change (Wei, Darling-Hammond, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009). That is, professional learning is impactful when teachers have the opportunity to collaborate, share, evaluate their teaching strategies, and provide feedback.
Effective teachers are those that are able to engage students in active learning, use a variety of teaching methods and strategies to scaffold learning for all students, and to work collegially across and within schools to support individual students and the school as a whole (Darling-Hammond, Jaquith, & Hamilton, 2012). Successful education systems can aid the development of these capabilities in teachers by providing mentoring opportunities, particularly for beginning teachers, and extensive supports and opportunities for ongoing professional learning (Barber & Mourshed, 2007; Darling-Hammond, Chung Wei, Adamson, & Orphanos, 2010).
TALIS provides a cross-national database of 106,000 teachers from 34 jurisdictions, measuring teachers’ perception of their schools, learning environment, teacher beliefs and practices, the opportunities for collaborative interaction with colleagues and the supports available for professional learning. This dataset is the largest of its kind and provides up-to-date and comparable data across disparate policy environments. Our method employs descriptive and inferential statistics (multiple and logistic regression) to analyze the TALIS data, together with those from other cross-national sources (OECD’s PISA 2012 and Education at Glance 2013), U.S. survey data including MetLife and Staff and Schooling Survey (SASS) datasets, with analysis of jurisdictional policy documents.
The findings presented in this presentation evidence key relationships between the time available for teacher collaboration and the type and intensity of professional development and yields important corollaries for teaching practices and student learning. They show that jurisdictions in which professional development is well-supported and promotes mentorship and collaboration are associated with the increased use of active teaching practices. In addition, participation in collaborative professional learning is associated with the increased use of collaborative practices in school and with greater teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction – factors themselves associated with the retention of teachers in the profession and positive learning outcomes for students.

Author

• Dion Burns, Learning Policy Institute