Improving Teaching

• In Event: What Works for Beginning Readers With Individualized Education Programs? Recent Findings From a Large, Multisite Development Project

Abstract

Objectives
We take as a given that teaching can be improved and such work will always be desirable; yet much evidence exists that teacher professional development is unlikely to bring about lasting change (Feng & Sass, 2013). We examine teacher self-reports to learn what changed during their participation in the two graduate courses, how they accounted for the change, and what barriers they encountered along the way.

Theoretical framework
Several perspectives inform our work. First, teaching practices are unlikely to change unless teacher beliefs change; changing beliefs is best brought about when new teaching practices are perceived to have a positive impact on what students can do (Author, 2017; Guskey, 1986). Second, in order to improve teaching the whole system will likely need to change in order for sustained meaningful reform to occur (Wilson & Daviss, 1994); consequently, designing effective in-service teacher education requires understanding the system where the work is occurring, including barriers to change (Hiebert & Stigler, 2017).

Method
We used a qualitative approach to analyze teacher interview data. According to Marshall and Rossman (2014), three broad phases are involved in data analyses: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. These phases were applied on two levels: within-cases (each teacher at multiple time points) and across cases (different teachers at the same time point). These data were reduced through a process of generating codes to categorize data.

Data Sources
We conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with treatment teachers (n=51) at three time points during the school year. The first two interviews contained open-ended questions about teachers’ goals for students in the study, instructional decision-making, and participation impact, if any, on teaching and learning. During the third interview we asked more reflective questions inviting teacher description of student learning needs at the start of the school year, whether and how those needs were addressed, and what students still needed to learn. Each interview lasted about 30 minutes; interviewers kept notes while interviewing, responses were transcribed and coded using a constant-comparative method.

Results
Two major themes emerged from our within-case analysis: teachers reported shifting from simply carrying out literacy activities to using new content knowledge to guide teaching decisions and they reported working towards greater coherence in their reading instruction across other settings. Our cross-case analysis identified several barriers to change: lack of time to teach individualized lessons because of large numbers of students on caseloads, and student characteristics considered non-malleable to the teacher such as absenteeism or poorly managed medications. Barriers to change were cited in the context of explaining why some students did not make progress. We discuss the design features of the professional development that teachers participated in that may be associated with observed and reported changes.

Scholarly Significance
Our study adds to the literature about changing teaching in that we describe from the teachers’ perspective what changed and why and what barriers to change they experienced, in a context where teacher professional development appeared to have mattered to student outcomes.

Authors

• Emily M. Rodgers, The Ohio State University

• Clara Reynolds Mikita, The Ohio State University - Columbus