Teacher Learning and Experiencing the Effect of Reform Initiatives

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Teacher Learning and Experiencing the Effect of
Reform Initiatives

• Jacquelyn T. Gray
• Rebecca Brooke Bays
• Georgia State University

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Teacher Learning - Professional Learning (PL)
Model

• PL is central to effecting positive student
  outcomes (Guskey, 2000).
• PL then is central to true educational reform
  (Hogan, 2002 Levin, 2003 Turbill, 2002 Corno
  and Randi, 1999).

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Georgia Wolf Trap Visual Logic Model for
Professional Learning (PL)
Quality of PL Activities
Context for Professional Learning (PL)
Process for PL
Incorporating Guskey Model Indicators
Positive Student Outcomes
Developmental Teaching Artist Model - Coach
System, school, community, and families
involvement
Content of PL
Quality of Teacher Learning
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Process for PL

• PL is most effective when teachers are taught as
  they would teach (Our workshops have teachers
  learn Wolf Trap strategies through activities
  using those very WT strategies.)
• PL requires multiple opportunities to develop -
  learning occurs across time for all learners (Our
  teachers attend workshops during the summer and
  learn from expert Teaching Artists during their
  in school residencies)
• Observational learning is crucial to PL (Teaching
  Artists model the teaching process and
  collaborate with teachers)

Developmental Teaching Artist Model - Coach
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Guskeys PL Model Indicators (And our measures)

• Teachers reactions to PL (Workshop evaluations
  Focus groups Residency evaluations and
  descriptions of their own enactments)
• Teachers Learning (Focus groups pre-post
  residency observations video recordings)
• Organization support and change (School system
  level support and school level changes)
• Teachers use of new knowledge and skills (Post
  observations and video recordings)
• Student Learning outcomes (Multiple measures from
  research results)

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Quality of PL Activities
Teachers and Teaching Artists evaluations of
Professional Learning Activities Workshop
Evaluation Surveys Wolf Trap in school
Residency Surveys Video of Teaching
Artists End of School Year Teacher Focus Groups
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Evaluation Results

• Workshop Evaluation Surveys On a 4 point
  scale the summer workshop overall rating was 3.8
• Wolf Trap in school Residency Surveys
  Teachers and Teaching Artists independently rated
  the residency. In general, paired t-tests
  revealed that teachers rated the experience
  higher than the teaching artists indicating that
  teaching artists used a higher standard. See
  Table 1.

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Video of Teaching Artists A rating scale was
developed to assess the quality of the Teaching
Artists who were working with our target
teachers. Two coders independently rated a mid
residency Session (Time 1) and a late residency
session (Time 2). Reliability was 88.7
agreement. Table 2 indicates that the difference
noted At the mid-point of the residencies was not
apparent by the latter part of the
residencies. Table 2 Means and Standard
Deviations for Wolf Trap Teaching Artists
Residency Enactment Ratings
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Teacher Focus Group results

• Transcriptions of the audio tapes for the
  teachers focus groups (N 4 with a total of 20
  teachers) revealed extremely positive comments
• for student outcomes,
• curriculum materials,
• and professional learning opportunities.

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Student outcome summary comments

• increase in vocabulary
• details in their drawings
• stories increased
• and their writing improved
• understood beginning, middle, and end for
  stories
• comprehension improved
• they got into character and understood audience
  skills
• and they loved it, were creative, even children
  who were typically quiet participated!

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• These comments are notable because they
  correspond to actual student outcomes that
  teachers were unaware of and we are seeing very
  similar responses from our second set of Focus
  Group transcriptions now being coded.
• Professional Learning comments
• You can go through a lot of training but if you
  actually see it being done then it just gives you
  more ideas and different ways to do it.
• Seeing the process and how involved students
  were, how they were learning in an active way,
  and seeing multiple intelligences recognized in
  the process.
• Teachers recognized the difference between the
  projects PL and their more typical experiences.
  They were all in agreement that learning a new
  teaching approach from observation of an expert
  model was a far superior method for their own
  learning and teaching.

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Quality of Teacher Learning

• Indicators of learning and emerging adaptive
  expertise
• Classroom observations
• Focus Group Discussion
• Third year teacher videos

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Teacher Learning Outcomes

• Teachers talked about their learning WT
  strategies and using them during our Focus Group
  Sessions
• Pre and Post residency observations revealed
  teacher learning and use of many of the WT
  strategies
• Preliminary analyses of videos of 3rd year
  teachers document teachers enactments using
  multiple WT strategies
• These three data sources converge as reliable
  descriptions of teacher learning from multiple
  measures

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Video Cases - Continuing and future research on
teacher learning

• We are in the process of developing a reliable
  coding scheme to describe teachers use of WT
  strategies and any adaptations or creative
  extensions of the WT approach that would suggest
  emerging adaptive expertise.
• We already have evidence they are embracing and
  using the WT strategies but we want to follow-up
  with research that will allow us to document
  adaptive expertise or teacher appropriation of
  the methods long after the residency has ended.

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System, school, community, and families
involvement
This is one area we would suggest needs to be
evaluated for assessing the impact of our reform
efforts as Guskey notes (2000). However, until
funding agencies begin to value the importance of
allowing fiscal support to do so, this area may
continue to be under estimated in impact. We can
say we have anecdotal evidence that school level
support has been vital to our work and that has
been initiated by our partner at the school
system level.
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Positive Student Outcomes
Our colleagues, Ann Kruger, Audrey Ambrosino,
and Lynda Kapsch present in this symposium
reporting positive student outcomes in cognitive
and social areas. It is our goal to ultimately
analyze the PL factors that could help us account
for the variance we see in student outcomes.
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Georgia Wolf Trap Visual Logic Model for
Professional Learning (PL)
Quality of PL Activities
Context for Professional Learning (PL)
Process for PL
Incorporating Guskey Model Indicators
Positive Student Outcomes
Developmental Teaching Artist Model - Coach
System, school, community, and families
involvement
Content of PL
Quality of Teacher Learning