Fostering Teacher Learning in Systemic Reform: A Design Proposal for Developing Professional Development

The Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS) is implementing a professional development program for science teachers to enact science curricula in a systemic reform initiative. This paper proposes a design approach for professional development in science education as a valuable way to re-conceptualize the process of fostering teacher learning. The paper presents an argument that professional development in science education, as a whole, has not been grounded in empirical research, and there is therefore a lack of sound design principles upon which to base professional development programs. One possible design model for professional development is posed in the context of the LeTUS systemic reform work, and evidence is given that illustrates the initial success of the model. NARST 2000 Design Research on Professional Development 2 Fostering Teacher Learning in Systemic Reform: A Design Proposal for Developing Professional Development Barry Fishman, Steven Best, Jacob Foster, & Ron Marx The University of Michigan Recent movements, such as strengthened standards for both students and teachers, increased calls for accountability through student testing, and efforts to raise the status of teaching as a profession have led to a growing demand for teacher professional development. As Wilson and Berne (1999) put it, “Professional teachers require professional development.” At the same time, report after report depicts the state of teacher professional development as deficient, particularly where technology is concerned (e.g., CEO Forum on Education and Technology, 1999; Education Week, 1997). Many times the deficiency is reported in terms of quantity, but the quality of professional development is a more important issue. In fact, though the number of professional development opportunities for teachers has increased during the past five years, there has been little concurrent growth in collective understanding about what makes for successful professional development, or what teachers learn from professional development (Wilson & Berne, 1999). The lack of focus on professional development as an area for research is especially evident in the domain of science. Although practically every new program or innovation in science education has associated professional development opportunities, there has not been much systematic study of these opportunities (Marx, Freeman, Krajcik, & Blumenfeld, 1997); they are simply treated as necessary but ancillary components of the innovation. To compound this problem, where good research on professional development has been conducted (e.g., Carpenter, Fennema, & Franke, 1996; Marx, Freeman et al., 1997; Palincsar, Magnusson, Marano, Ford, & Brown, in press), it has focused on groups of volunteer teachers who are, more often than not, motivated to change or try something new. We are not aware of similar professional development research conducted in settings that we call “systemic,” where change is implemented on a broad scale and teachers are, for the most part, not highly motivated. The latter situation is ultimately of greater practical importance to the general cause of reform. Professional Development Research in Science Education The past several decades of research and development in science education reform have yielded many innovative curricula, tools, and ideas. One area, however, that has seen less overall progress is the development of new frameworks for professional development of science teachers (Marx, Freeman et al., 1997). The staff development literature rarely addresses science education directly, and in turn the science education literature has not until recently addressed issues of professional development at any length. However, there is a considerable literature on professional development in general, and in areas such as the teaching of reading--why should science education require its own, separate research in this area? A chief reason is that the content, materials, and teaching methods used in science education are different than those of other content areas. Given these differences, Wilson and Berne (1999) argue for the need for subject-specific professional development research. Tobin, Tippins, and Gallard (1994) are among the few researchers who have devoted considerable attention to teacher development in science, pointing to two practices as successful: connecting to teachers’ existing knowledge and providing a supportive environment for change over time. Loucks-Horsley and colleagues (1998) present a typology of different forms of professional development in science teaching, but the framework is not linked to research on teacher learning. Kennedy (1999), evaluates specific programs in science, and found that programs that emphasized content learning by teachers were overall the most successful. Unfortunately, teacher knowledge may be the most difficult thing to measure in professional development. End-ofworkshop evaluations are commonplace in professional development, but they represent measures of teacher attitudes, not knowledge. As Fenstermacher (1994) has pointed out, reports of what teachers believe or reflect on may or may not actually be knowledge. To actually measure knowledge would require something that looks much like a test, whether it is actually administered on paper or given in the form of a structured interview, and this would likely only represent some aspect of the teacher’s knowledge, specifically content knowledge (pedagogical knowledge of any sort would be difficult to measure or evaluate). Furthermore, to gather data on teacher content knowledge using such an instrument in highly problematic in a systemic reform environment. Given the current political climate for teachers, many may be reluctant to submit to a “test” or anything that feels like a test of their own knowledge. Certainly, a great deal of trust would be required between researcher and teacher before such an NARST 2000 Design Research on Professional Development 3 instrument could be used. Given the context of our work, systemic reform in an urban environment, such trust is difficult to build, and the use of tests is next to impossible. Given that as a constraint, we must find alternative avenues for gauging teacher knowledge. A Design Approach to Professional Development Research By way of definition, we maintain that professional development is fundamentally about teacher learning: changes in the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes that teachers possess that lead to the acquisition of new skills, new concepts, and new processes related to the work of teaching. We argue that what is called for is a design approach for research on professional development. This is akin to the design experiments methodology called for by Collins (1990) and described by Brown (1992), which studies classrooms as learning systems and embraces the practical impossibility of conducted traditional controlled studies in real classroom settings. A design approach calls for close association, even partnership, between the research and the researched; it calls for an iterative approach to the introduction of new ideas and evaluation of progress; and it emphasizes the use of multiple methods to understand the phenomena being studied. We also emphasize the term design because we believe it is critical to the long term success of science education reform that the design of professional development receive at least as much careful attention as the development of new teaching methods, curricula, or technological tools. We have been developing a design approach on the creation and study of professional development as part of a larger program of systemic science education reform, and it is that effort that we describe in this paper. We also talk about design in the same sense as that used by Simon (1996) to distinguish between programs of research that focus on the “artificial” as opposed to the “natural.” Unlike a natural science, which intends to uncover truths about things as they are, a design science focuses on the creation of interfaces to mediate elements of a task environment for its users. In this sense, we begin our design process by making informed decisions about the initial design for professional development that is bounded by goals, resources, and constraints. We shape our ongoing development with ongoing data collection and analysis, employing re-design “on the run.” In short, the design approach at many junctures more closely resembles engineering than science. A Design Approach for Teacher Professional Development Richardson (1996) states that a chief objective of professional development should be to foster changes in teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes, because these components of teacher cognition show a strong correlation to teachers’ classroom practices. We have developed a model for teacher learning in this research that places knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes (K/B/A) in an interactive relationship with change mechanisms that are mediated by professional development activities, the interpretation of student change or learning as represented by various forms of assessment, and through the practical experiences of classroom enactment. This model is represented graphically in Figure 1. In the paragraphs that follow, we will elaborate on each of its components.