29 Mar
2005
29 Mar
'05
1:47 p.m.
Shandy,
Thanks for sharing this. The Loucks-Horsley & Matsumoto article looks very
interesting. I'll read it more carefully when I get a chance.
Items (b) and (c) seem to imply that a semester- or year-long professional
development opportunity for a cohort of teachers (such as all first-year
graduate students or all graduate students in their first semester of
teaching) would be effective.
Item (d) seems important, too. At a recent workshop, we floated the idea of
a future workshop focusing on common calculus student errors and
misconceptions. This would be particularly useful for our graduate
students, who likely never experienced difficulties learning mathematics.
However, paying attention to pedagogical content knowledge should probably
be a part of most if not all the workshops we do.
I'm not sure what you mean with item (e). Does this refer to the teachers
reflecting on and analyzing their own teaching regularly? Perhaps by
watching videos of themselves teaching?
Derek
On 3/16/05 2:35 AM, "S. Hauk" <hauk(a)unco.edu> wrote:
Just a quick note from Shandy in response to
Derek's email. There is a
plethora of research out there on professional development of in-service K-14
teachers. I'm going to quote from a paper I recently wrote with Jeff Farmer
and Andrew Neumann [with a few additional comments in square brackets]:
What is still being clarified is what constitutes ³effective²
professional development and just how prevalent ³effective² professional
development program offerings are. In their study of the professional
development offered to K-12 teacher-participants through the federally-funded
Eisenhower Program, Desimone, Porter, Garet, Yoon, and Birman (2002) found
that four out of five professional development experiences were traditional,
transmission-based workshops (without active learning) of 15 or fewer contact
hours, and that most spanned less than a week.
Among the key features of effective professional development programs
identified in the research literature are several structures and strategies in
conflict with this reported common practice (Loucks-Horsley & Matsumoto,
1999). Three organizational components have been identified as particularly
effective:
(a) using reform methods (e.g., a mathematics program that is based on the
PSSM [see NCTM entry in references below]),
(b) distributing activities across an extended period of weeks or months
and
(c) including groups of teachers participating collectively from a
department or local area. Moreover, three significant methodological aspects
of an effective professional development experience have been identified:
(d) a focus on improving the pedagogical content knowledge of teachers
[this is more than whether or not they can "do the math," it's about
whether
or not they can anticipate student needs and communicate mathematical ideas in
ways accessible to students (e.g., applying Stein and Smith's (1998) Math
Tasks Framework to collegiate mathematics teaching)],
(e) regular and meaningful analysis of teaching and learning and
(f) fostering connectedness and inclusiveness among participants (Birman,
Desimone, Porter, and Garet, 2000).
References
Birman, B. F., Desimone, L., Porter, A. C., and Garet, M. S. (May, 2000).
Designing professional development that works. Educational Leadership, 28-33.
Desimone, L., Porter, A. C., Garet, M. S.,Yoon, K., and Birman, B. F. (2002)
Effects of professional development on teachers¹ instruction: Results from a
three-year longitudinal study. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
24(2), 81-112.
Farmer, J., Hauk, S., and Neumann, A. M. (2005). Negotiating reform:
Implementing Process Standards in culturally responsive professional
development. To appear in the High School Journal, See
http://hopper.unco.edu/faculty/personal/hauk/research.html for a link to the
manuscript.
Loucks-Horsley, S. and Matsumoto, C. (1999). Research on professional
development for teachers of mathematics and science: The state of the scene.
School Science & Mathematics, 99(5), 258-271.
NCTM: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and
standards for school mathematics (PSSM). Reston, VA: Author.
Stein, M. S. and Smith M. K. (1998). Selecting and creating mathematical
tasks: From research to practice. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School 3,
344-350.
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--
Derek Bruff, Preceptor
Department of Mathematics, Harvard University
Email: bruff(a)fas.harvard.edu
Web: http://www.derekbruff.com/