Innovations in Early Educator Professional Development: Collaborative Learning and Improvement

• In Event: Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Early Childhood Teacher Preparation and Professional Development

Abstract

A high quality workforce is essential to promoting healthy development and closing opportunity gaps for young children. Yet professional development efforts frequently fail to achieve their desired results. While most professional development investments focus on training individual teachers, the science of improvement suggests that collaborative and organizational approaches are far more effective. This multiple case study examined the implementation and impact of an innovative collaborative model for professional development. Results show how three key components of the intervention (teams, data and feedback loops, and the organizational infrastructure) enabled professional learning and improved practices. This study found that improvements in practice were enabled through building collective and organizational capacity for change.

Author

• Anne Douglass, University of Massachusetts - Boston