Examining Teacher Engagement in Context in Professional Development Activities

• In Event: Teacher Motivation for Learning and Professional Development

Abstract

Objectives and theoretical perspectives
Defined as active behavioral participation, cognitive investment, and emotional commitment to the learning task (Fredricks et al., 2004), engagement is a central manifestation of learners' motivation, critical for learning processes and outcomes (Fredricks et al., 2004; Bryson & Hand, 2007). Yet only scarce research explores teacher engagement in professional learning (but see in de Wal et al., 2014). Rather, the majority of the research of engagement addresses student engagement and uses decontextualized self-report tools, i.e., questionnaires.
On this background, this qualitative study develops an analytical observational tool that affords a rich contextualized account of teacher engagement in professional development (PD) activities. Through a description of the physical and verbal components of engagement in relation to the assigned task at any given moment, the tool serves to: (1) typologize teachers according to engagement level and modality; (2) typologize PD activities that support different engagement levels and modalities; and (3) identify engagement shifts during activities.
Methods
We participated-observed and video-recorded 30 hours of PD sessions with Israeli elementary and middle-school science teachers. We focused on ten teachers who represent the range of participating teachers and levels and modalities of engagement. We used multimodal analysis (Streeck et al., 2011) of the video-recordings to map each teacher's engagement, in relation to the task defined by the PD facilitator (e.g., listening or deliberating), onto a three-dimensional graph (Figure 2): (1) engagement level—extra participation, maximum participation, as-expected participation, task rejection, task detachment; (2) engagement modalities—verbal, body gestures and movement, gaze and facial expressions; and (3) engagement duration. To understand the factors that support or impede teacher engagement, we conducted stimulating-recall interviews (Lyle, 2003), viewing and discussing with each teacher a video-recorded episode where she exhibited high engagement and one episode where she exhibited low engagement and thereby acquiring the teachers’ perspectives on their engagement during these episodes.
Central findings
We identified four types of teachers (Table 4): (1) Enthusiastic (commonly highly engaged across all modalities); (2) Blunt (commonly disengaged across all modalities); (3) Concealed (often engaged apart from in specific circumstances and exhibits more embodied engagement than verbal engagement); and (4) Deluding (often disengaged apart from specific interactions and exhibits more embodied disengagement than verbal disengagement; Figure 3). Of the PD activities, inquiry-into-practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999) emerged as an activity that often triggers the engagement of the Deluding teacher type. The interviews raised various supporting and impeding factors of teacher engagement, some of which already appear in the literature, for example, autonomy, belonging, relevance, applicability, and interest in the discipline (e.g. de Brabander & Glastra, 2018; Darling-Hammond, 2008; Deci & Ryan, 2000). Additional factors that emerged in our study include demonstrating expertise to maintain professional status and teachers' face (see Goffman, 1955).
Significance
The tool we develop in this study advances understanding of teacher engagement and, hence, their learning in PD contexts and can be applied in research that evaluates PD designs. It affords insight into the dynamics of teacher engagement and the social interactions involved in teacher learning.

Authors

• Irit Vivante, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Dana Vedder-Weiss, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev