Supporting university content specialists in providing effective professional development: the educative role of evaluation

Evaluation of professional development (PD) has traditionally been composed of summative and formative feedback, and has focused on assessing the extent to which the PD impacts participating teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and practices. This study establishes an additional purpose for PD evaluat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Teacher development 2016-08, Vol.20 (4), p.538-556
Main Authors: Arbaugh, Fran, Marra, Rose, Lannin, John K., Cheng, Ya-Wen, Merle-Johnson, Dominike, Smith, Rena′
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case Studies
Data Collection
educating teacher educators
educative opportunities for professional developers
Evaluators
Faculty Development
Feedback (Response)
Formative Evaluation
Likert Scales
Mathematics Education
Mathematics Instruction
mathematics professional development
Mathematics Teachers
Missouri
professional developer education
professional developer learning
Professional Development
Program Implementation
Science Education
Science Instruction
science professional development
Science Teachers
Semi Structured Interviews
Summative Evaluation
Teacher Education
Teacher Educators
Teacher Effectiveness
Universities
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Summary:Evaluation of professional development (PD) has traditionally been composed of summative and formative feedback, and has focused on assessing the extent to which the PD impacts participating teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and practices. This study establishes an additional purpose for PD evaluation - as educative opportunities for professional developers, particularly for PD providers who are university-level content specialists (e.g. scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, engineers). Through analysis of data collected as state-wide evaluators for one US Midwest state's Improving Teacher Quality Grant PD programs, and utilizing an analysis methodology which we term 'recommendation traces,' we examine formative evaluation recommendations that we made to four different PD projects over three years. Findings from this study shed light on how content specialists who work in PD projects can learn about effective PD through project evaluation efforts.
ISSN:1366-4530
1747-5120
DOI:10.1080/13664530.2016.1173577