Bringing Participatory Processes to Professional Development: Using and Teaching Group-Level Assessment

• In Event: Participatory Research as Democratic Pedagogy: Using Group-Level Assessment for Planning, Learning, and Meaning Making

Abstract

Purposes
This paper describes how as practitioner-leaders we used and modified the participatory action research method “group-level assessment” (GLA) (Vaughn & Lohmueller, 2014) throughout a series of six intensive seminars for a two-year cohort of the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI), a professional development program for educators and administrators in Jewish education settings. We seek to illustrate the ways this democratic framework served simultaneously as a professional development tool, a method participants could adapt for use in their own settings, and a way to inform decision-making within the program.

Theoretical Framework
Our work with GLA is rooted in the concepts of participatory democracy (Dewey, 1916) and critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970/1993). Goals from these perspectives are to deliberate and share power among participants in a group or community; value the unique knowledges and meaning-making capacities that diverse individuals bring to the table; and make room for the voices/agency of those most marginalized in a given context.

Modes of Inquiry
The participatory method of GLA was employed in its original form as well as modified to what we are calling group-level understanding (GLU) and group-level planning (GLP). First, GLU was used with the entire cohort (n=38) in the first seminar in order to get a sense of their professional development needs. A small study group from the cohort then took their responses, distilled the major themes, and planned action steps for the following seminar. The study group continued to meet online to discuss how they were using the process in their home settings and to help plan a GLA for the final MTEI session. During this time, the study group also used a GLP to develop a writing project that would disseminate what they had each learned from using GLA/U/P in their settings. Lastly, using a final GLA, the entire cohort created action groups with which to continue working on forms of professional development they had identified as important after the cohort ended.

Data Sources
Data sources included the GLA/U/P prompts and responses from the different times it was used; notes from study groups and planning meetings; our reflective memoing about how participants were interacting with the processes; and both verbal and written feedback about the program in which participants specifically discussed their experiences with the process.

Results
This democratic method for understanding and taking action on participants’ self-identified PD needs proved to be empowering for these educators, provided the MTEI faculty insight into their students’ experiences, and helped inform programmatic planning and adaptations for this and future cohorts. Simultaneously, interested educators learned how to use the GLA/U/P in order to foster democratic meaning-making and development in their own settings.

Scholarly Significance
This study adds to the professional development literature by offering one model in which participants are offered the opportunity to co-construct the trajectory of their professional learning. By inviting participant voice into the curriculum planning process, we not only create a more responsive pedagogy, we also model ways in which participants can enact similar democratic processes in their own educational institutions.

Authors

• Miriam B. Raider-Roth, University of Cincinnati

• Amy Rector-Aranda, Texas A&M University