When a Professional Learning Action Space Closes, Does Teacher Professional Capacity Survive?

• In Event: International Perspectives on Capacity for Change

Abstract

Oftentimes professional learning initiatives in schools do not last forever, and instead come to a close, but these closes and their impact are not well understood. This study of a four-year professional learning initiative around literacy explores this opening and closing of an instructional reform 'action space' by analyzing a professional learning initiative as it opened and closed. We trace the experiences of 18 teachers although two planned and funded years and then one unfunded year of participation in an ongoing professional learning project in a Northeast urban high school. Findings suggest that teachers struggled when their initiative came to an official close, but participants had developed new capacities to use in other action spaces.

Authors

• Christina L. Dobbs, Boston University

• Jacy C. Ippolito, Salem State University

• Megin Charner-Laird, Salem State University