Fruitful Professional Learning: Conceptual Inputs, Practical Inputs, and Ownership as Mediators of Professional Learning Appropriation

• In Event: Professional Learning and the Change Process

Abstract

Understanding factors that impact how teachers learn and implement pedagogy from professional development is critical for maximizing educational and financial investments in teacher development. Appropriation is understood as a continuum where educators acquire and implement both practical and conceptual aspects of professional learning. The variability associated with instructional change made from professional development drives this inquiry to search for better understandings of pedagogical tool appropriation. Teachers within a professional development project designed to investigate how cyber-enabled technologies might enhance instruction in eighth-grade integrated science classrooms were studied. Findings add to the literature of appropriation of instructional practices by connecting eight specific factors that influence conceptual and practical tools with the development of ownership of pedagogical practices in an appropriation hierarchy.

Authors

• Max L. Longhurst, Utah State University

• Suzanne H. Jones, Utah State University

• Todd Campbell, University of Connecticut