Kindergarten Teachers' Perception of Virtual Professional Development in a Randomized Controlled Trial Study

• In Event: Teacher Professional Growth in Supporting English Learners

Abstract

Using qualitative survey response data from 87 kindergarten bilingual teachers in a randomized controlled trial (RCT), we examined teachers’ perceptions towards the on-going, structured, and intensive virtual professional development (VPD) throughout 2016-2017 school year. These perceptions relate to the effectiveness of VPD as compared to traditional face-to-face (F2F) PD and the potential to take PD to broader geographic regions (scalability). Through the progression from the original RCT in one school district with F2F PD to a validation RCT in 10 school districts across 3 geographic regions with VPD, it was found that teachers were overwhelmingly positive toward such type of delivery, and VPD is a gateway to increasing the scalability of strategies presented in the synchronous virtual setting.

Authors

• Fuhui Tong, Texas A&M University - College Station

• Beverly J. Irby, Texas A&M University - College Station

• Rafael Lara-Alecio, Texas A&M University

• Cindy Lynn Guerrero, Texas A&M University

• Yue Min, Texas A&M University - College Station

• Zhuoying Wang, University of Texas at Austin

• Laura Cajiao-Wingenbach, Texas A&M University - College Station

• Tamara Lopez, Texas A&M University - College Station