Supporting Teacher Practice Change and Disciplinary Literacy: Roles in Development, Support, and Sustainability

• In Event: Distributed Leadership to Sustain Literacy Learning for Teachers and Adolescents: Lessons Across Time and Contexts

Abstract

Purpose
This first presentation deviates from the prescribed format in order to provide a foundation for the subsequent presentations and discussion in the symposium. It will include:

1) an overview of the intervention’s framework, design principles, and evidence base
2) a description of what the intervention looks like for teachers and students
3) the intervention developers’ strategy to scale through distributed leadership, continuous learning, and organizational consistency
4) a description of the key roles (teacher leaders, coaches, principals, regional and state education leaders, organization leaders) and their associated learning experiences intended to support implementation and sustainability

Framework/Perspective: The Professional Learning Framework and Theory of Scale
In Reading Apprenticeship classrooms and professional learning, the social, personal, cognitive, and knowledge-building dimensions of classroom life are woven into subject area teaching through increased reading opportunities and collaborative, metacognitive routines (Greenleaf, et al. 2023; see also Framework Graphic) Reading Apprenticeship developers work from an asset based approach – we honor and draw upon both: a) what teachers know and do as expert readers in particular domains, and b) adolescents’ life experiences and abilities as capable learners. Teachers and students enacting Reading Apprenticeship do the following: engage in reading; make discipline-specific reading processes and knowledge visible; make reading processes, prior knowledge, understandings and (mis)conceptions visible; build awareness of their reading processes in order to gain strategic control over these processes; and, ultimately acquire a repertoire of discipline-specific problem-solving strategies for deepening comprehension. Meanwhile, developers and local leaders engage in additional learning and partnerships to support teachers inquiry into practice over time.

Methods and Data Sources
While studying whether or not the intervention achieved the teacher and student impact on measures related to each dimension described in the framework above via RCTs that include multi-level models with data from teacher surveys, student grades, attendance, and standardized test scores (e.g. Sommers, et al 2010), researchers and program designers also created and studied the intervention’s process of scale and institutionalization – examining the stages of transition as ownership is transferred from the developers to teachers, districts, and schools. Several federal research, dissemination grants awarded to the developers, independent researchers, and the subsequent related publications and service lines, have described the project’s aims and impact (e.g. Greenleaf, et al 2015; Fancsali et al, 2015; Newman, et al 2015.)

Results and Significance:
Multiple studies of the Reading Apprenticeship intervention over the past 20 years indicate that teacher practice change at the secondary level requires resources, technical expertise, leadership development, as well as time for both teacher and students to collaborate. If teachers are to have the kinds of learning experiences that will disrupt the currently inequitable ‘status quo,’ education leaders must invest in partnerships that allow for collaboration and learning at multiple levels of leadership – school (teacher leaders and administrators); support agencies, administrators, and R&D organizations.

Authors

• Jenell Krishnan, WestEd

• Mary Stump, WestEd