Using a Practical Measure of Teachers' Experiences of Professional Development to Inform and Improve Facilitation

• In Event: Using a System of Practical Measures, Routines, and Representations to Support Instructional Improvement at Scale

Abstract

Objectives: This paper reports on an empirical analysis of how professional development (PD) facilitators used a practical measure of teachers’ experiences in collaborative PD sessions (see Table 2) to inquire into and make decisions about their facilitation practice.

Perspectives: Facilitation is critical for the effectiveness of PD programs (Sztajn et al., 2017). However, skillful facilitation is complex, challenging work (van Es & Sherin, 2017). As seen in Table 2, facilitators must support group members to engage in discussions characterized by authentic, generative inquiry (Lefstein et al., 2019); deprivatize their practice for collective inquiry (e.g., Ball & Cohen, 1999; Little, 2002); view the professional development as relevant to their own instructional contexts (e.g., Horn & Kane, 2015; Putnam & Borko, 2000); and see themselves as a valued member of the community (e.g., Grossman et al., 2001).

A situative perspective on learning highlights the value of using tools to develop complex practice, especially in collaboration with others who are accomplished in the targeted forms of practice (Putnam & Borko, 2000). However, few tools currently exist to support facilitators in assessing and improving their ongoing practice. The practical measure of collaborative PD was designed to provide facilitators with information about aspects of facilitation central to supporting teacher learning.

Data Sources & Methods: The measure was used by facilitators in 18 PD sessions across 6 PD models focused on improvements aimed at ambitious and equitable mathematics instruction. This paper focuses on how one PD facilitator used the measure to assess and inform her ongoing work with a middle-grades math department. The facilitator met with the teachers five times and administered the measure at time two and time five in the year. After each administration, the facilitator analyzed teachers' responses, in collaboration with two accomplished PD leaders.

Data sources include (a) teachers’ responses to the practical measure in two PD sessions (see Figure 1); (b) field notes, audio recordings, and artifacts from the sessions; and (c) three interviews with the facilitator in which she and the PD leaders interpreted teachers’ responses and considered modifications to the facilitation of future sessions. Qualitative analysis focused on how the facilitator interpreted teachers' responses and identified goals for her practice in conversation with the PD leaders.

Results: Initial analysis indicates that the facilitator used the measure in two key ways. First, she used teachers’ responses to specific items to provide insight into critical and otherwise hidden aspects of teachers’ perspectives and experiences. These insights informed her goal-setting for teachers’ learning and for her facilitation practice. Second, she tracked aggregated teachers’ responses to survey items over time to assess whether changes in their experiences suggested improvements in her facilitation. In the full paper, we provide examples to illustrate these patterns.

Significance: This paper highlights the potential for using a practical measure of professional learning to inform facilitators’ practice, and by association, the improvement of PD. Findings also indicate the importance of attending to how aspects of the context and users’ current perspectives and practice shape facilitators’ use of practical measures of professional learning.

Authors

• Hannah Nieman, University of Washington

• Kara J. Jackson, University of Washington - Seattle

• Michael Jarry-Shore, Boise State University

• Hilda Borko, Stanford University

• Elham Kazemi, University of Washington

• Starlie Chinen, University of Washington - Seattle

• Anita Lenges, University of Washington - Seattle

• Zuhal Yilmaz, University of California - Riverside

• Cara Haines, Vanderbilt University