Evaluating the impact of a facilitated learning community approach to professional development on teacher practice and student achievement

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. The focus of this research was an evaluation of the impact of teacher professional development (PD) on student achievement during implementation of a reform curriculum. The PD consisted of five four-hour workshop sessions distributed over the time teachers were implementing the reform curriculum in their classrooms. The research was conducted in a mid-size, urban school district over the span of two years. Three groups of teachers were contrasted: teachers who continued to use the established curriculum (N = 5), teachers who implemented the reform curriculum without participating in the PD sessions (N = 5), and teachers who implemented the reform curriculum while participating in the PD sessions (N = 13). Teachers who participated in the PD had approximately a one standard deviation advantage in their students' achievement over those who did not. We collected evidence of particular features of the PD that explained the differences in student achievement. The features included: distributing the workshops throughout the implementation; engaging teachers in an active learning process situated in the curriculum; and facilitating a collaborative community of teacher professionals. This study led us to believe that not only are the individual features of the PD important, but the combination of all three together is particularly powerful. Introduction Professional development (PD) for teachers in the form of in-service training is generally acknowledged to be an important component of improving teacher practice and thereby student learning (Guskey 2000; Kennedy 1998). Given the expense (in time and money) of PD, it is critically important to understand what forms of PD have the greatest impact on teacher practice and student learning. Yet relatively little research has tracked PD all the way to student performance. Guskey (2000) claims that professional development should plan …