The Primary Review have published this paper which examines issues around professional development and leadership development in primary schools. The authors also set the historical context of teacher training and CPD.
Key points:
- There is an inadequate knowledge base on CPD resulting in a lack of facts about the scale of provision, who does what, costs, numbers on courses, how the considerable sums now spent on CPD are actually spent and how value-for-money is measured.
- The evidence base is very diverse and fragmented, and usually grounded in individual self-report which generally relates solely to the quality of the CPD experience. Much of the research occurs summatively, after the CPD experience, rather than formatively, and evaluation processes are not sophisticated enough to track multiple outcomes, both intended and unintended, and different levels of impact.
- Where outcomes are reported, the relationship between teacher, school and pupil benefits are not unpicked.
- Head teachers are more satisfied than teachers that CPD is relevant, they are also more likely to have engaged in a variety of CPD.
- Primary school teachers are more positive about CPD than their secondary colleagues.
- Features of worthwhile CPD across all the studies drawn upon were that it should be focused, well structured, presented by people with recent knowledge and including provision for active
learning, and that it was relevant and applicable to school/classroom settings. However, notions of what constitutes relevance differ. Negative feelings were especially associated with ‘one size fits all’ standardised CPD provision which did not take account of teachers’ existing knowledge, experience and needs.
- Research has established the effectiveness of CPD where teachers have ownership over their
professional development and scope for identifying their own CPD focus.
- Collaborative CPD interventions such as peer support, observation with feedback, the use of external expertise in school-based activity and professional dialogue have been found to be beneficial for teachers and pupils.
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1 comment:
Congratulations on an informative and well written article. Being the retired director of the Willamette University Graduate School of Education (Oregon, USA), the reference to PLCs in the USA caught my eye ["The focus on teaching and learning is viewed as crucial to raising standards of pupil attainment. While as yet there is little research linking schools working as PLCs to student outcomes, there is evidence particularly from the USA that schools
operating in the ways outlined above positively influence student achievement"].
I am the creator of the Data-Based Observation Method (and supporting software) which is being implemented in schools across the USA and especially in PLCs. This approach removes the majority of the subjectivity in observations and can, with a bit of work, provide the link between research, standards of classroom behaviors, and growth in learning.
Simply put, research and/or standards for teaching practices are converted to observable behavior terms. Objective data collection tools, which can be either paper/pencil or computer based, are then developed to gather frequency or duration data on these behaviors.
The data resulting from observations using these tools forms the basis for objective, professional discussions between members of the PLC. Decisions can be made regarding teaching practices, and both the fidelity and effectiveness of the implementation of those decisions easily confirmed at the local level.
While in no means uniform across the US, this approach is rapidly growing in use by administrators, lead teachers, PLCs, special education, and external appraisers. The shift from self reporting or subjective rankings is welcomed by all participants
This method came about as a result of a career of observing classrooms and noticing that the process of improvement in teaching practices was driven primarily by forces external to the teaching core - government regulations and standards, opinions and judgments of observers (particularly school administrators) - with little engagement of the heart of the system, the professional teacher.
I found that when objective data on classroom practices and student behaviors was provided to the teacher as a basis for discussion, teachers were fully capable and intensely interested in engaging in productive and professional discourse. I believe this to be a critical component to the success of PLCs.
Additional information is available at my blog: Data-Based Classroom Observation
John Tenny, Ph.D.
eCOVE Software
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