Such Stuff as Professional Development Is Made On

• In Event: The Truth Is Out There: Amplifying Teacher-Researcher Voice in Education Research

Abstract

Objectives
As a longtime teacher, I entered my doctoral program believing that canonical literature, particularly Shakespeare, could be culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1995), depending on how it was taught. After all, hadn’t I, a Latina, experienced empowerment through the words of the Bard? Of course, the qualifying clause, “depending on how it is taught” is where this study begins. What is the “how”--that practice or underlying ideology– and how will teachers learn about it and be empowered to bring it into their classrooms? This study examines the learning of teachers in Bard Core PD, a professional development course for ELA teachers. As PD can be the primary means by which a practitioner changes their practice (McComb & Eather, 2017), this study seeks to understand how teachers might come to more culturally relevant and sustaining (Paris & Alim, 2017) practices through engagement in this PD.

Theoretical framework
This study draws on a wide body of scholarship on culture and education (e.g., Au & Jordan, 1981), but particularly the work of Ladson-Billings (1994) on culturally relevant teaching, which posits that students’ cultures should be acknowledged and relevant in the classroom with the goal of academic success in mind. Ladson-Billings’s work has been extended by other scholars, including Paris and Alim (2017) to encompass culturally sustaining pedagogy, as an acknowledgement that education should also serve the democratic role of perpetuating, fostering, and sustaining students’ hybrid and fluid cultures and identities.
Methods & Data Sources
This case study explores how a PD experience can change teacher attitudes and beliefs, as well as how teachers learn to help students read complex texts, possibly in ways that are culturally relevant/sustaining. Of particular interest are the effects of a PD program oriented around Shakespearean plays. Research questions included: (1) How do ELA teachers describe their participation in a year-long, cohort-based reading professional development?, and (2) In what ways do they describe changes in their attitudes, curriculum design, and day-to-day instructional moves as a result of the PD?,
Methods of data collection included eight video-recorded sessions of the Bard Core professional development program, three semistructured, 30-60 minute interviews with PD participants, and intro and exit surveys. Methods of data analysis included analytic memoing (Saldaña, 2013). The entire dataset was thematically coded using the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework (Muhammad, et al., 2021).
Results & Significance
The participants in this study formed a Community of Practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) by virtue of the cohort design of the PD, which fostered their engaging in meaningful and even difficult conversations around race and identity as they relate to the students that they teach, and the authors and works that we expose them to. For many of the participants, the readings and activities around culturally sustaining practices were among the most salient features of the PD. Because of my positionality as a practitioner who has experienced many PDs over my 13 years in the profession, I was in the unique position of sometimes facilitating and sometimes participating in the PD even as I was collecting data.

Author

• Melina Lesus, University of Illinois at Chicago
  Presenting Author