Higher education has recently experienced a shift from an input-based accountability system (curriculum and instruction) to one that is now output-based (assessment). Faculty members are the intermediaries who prepare curriculum and instruction to meet the requirements of teacher education departments and to demonstrate results through the achievement of students. The purpose of this study was to understand how adjunct and full-time faculty members experience participation in a public university teacher education department and if faculty members' experience of participation influences instruction. Theories of systems, teacher education, faculty work, and communities of practice formed the study's conceptual framework. Data for the interpretive phenomenological case study included 7 interviews of adjunct and full-time faculty as well as key artifacts and observations of 2 faculty meetings. The data were coded using first- and second-order constructs and analyzed to answer the research question. All full-time faculty members believed their participation in the department affected their instruction whereas the adjunct faculty members did not. Moreover, faculty members had distinct trajectories in a community of practice that may or may not be tied to their status as adjunct or full-time. Increased facilitation of these faculty trajectories by deans and chairs may result in better utilization of faculty professional skills and knowledge. This study's findings may increase knowledge by higher education leadership about their faculty's community of practice and thus create positive social change through the improvement of instruction by faculty and through it, student achievement.

The purpose of this study was to inquire into the ways in which participation in physical science professional development impacts science teachers' professional learning and ultimately their practice over time. This study strove to provide a greater understanding of teachers' processes as they engage in professional learning and make changes in their practice long after the requirements of the professional development have been met. The six respondents that participated in the inquiry were physical science educators who were teaching in four different high schools in Central California. The guiding research question was stated as: How does participation in physical science professional development impact teachers' professional learning and ultimately their practice? Three sub-questions were also explored: In what ways does physical science professional development impact teachers' pedagogical content knowledge over time? In what ways does physical science professional development impact teachers' curriculum decision-making processes over time? In what ways does physical science professional development support a teacher's professional learning over time? Collective case study methodology was used in order to acquire multiple perspectives on the processes of teachers' professional learning and how professional development experiences have impacted this process. From four cross-case analyses of interviews, classroom observations, and documents, six themes emerged elucidating the process of professional learning. The process of professional learning is "driven" by a constant desire to learn resulting in the participation in professional development experiences where bits-n-pieces of curriculum are incorporated into the teachers' practice supported by relationships and reflection. The pressure to conform to education policy tempers the entire process of professional learning. Lastly, the process of professional learning has produced teachers as leaders. Each aspect of the process of professional learning has been impacted by the respondents' participation in professional development. By engaging in the iterative process of professional learning described here, respondents are transforming their professional development experiences in order to learn from and about their practice over extended periods of time. As professional learners, the respondents act as change agents in their own practice, schools and learning communities. Based on the results, implications for practice and recommendations for further inquiry are also presented.

Experiential, outdoor education supports improvement in students’ problem-solving skills; collaboration and communication skills; and enjoyment in learning in the outdoors. Outdoor instruction is becoming increasingly underutilized. A residential environmental education center, located in Tennessee has conducted professional development programs in effort to increase teacher implementation of instruction in outdoor spaces. This institute revealed concern for low implementation rates to past professional development opportunities. Their newly designed, long-term professional development explored teacher’s perceived challenges and needs, then combined effective experiential pedagogy in outdoor spaces with pre-established communities of support from the participating schools in effort to contribute to experiential, outdoor instruction reform. This program entailed four workshop meetings over a seven-month time span, producing over 50 hours of face-toace contact during the training. Program leaders designed the learning experience to include effective professional development strategies; reflective assignments; and activities that related to citizen science, experiential learning, and science and engineering practices found in the recently adopted Tennessee State Science Standards. This study identified concepts of the planned, delivered, and received curricula of the workshop series to define the intentions, methodologies, and impact of the experience. The intentions of the program were aligned to the delivered curricula then the impact of the program was considered. Data collected during this qualitative study included over 15 hours of interviews; over 110 hours of observation field notes; and various artifacts including journals, handouts and applications. This long-term professional development provided a pre-established community of practice and advocated for experiential instruction in outdoor spaces; eliminating barriers; improving teacher confidence and implementation of knowledge gained; and reinforcing the professional development experience.

When the National Assessment of Educational Progress reported in 1998 that 70 percent of fourth grade children in the United States were reading just at (31%) or below the basic grade level (39%), this astounding fact resulted in national attention and political intervention. At the same time, the National Research Council published their 25 years of researched findings in their book, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The national reactions to these reports were strong and included new initiatives for overcoming this emerging national problem. One such initiative was the implementation of the national Reading Excellence Act (REA). The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the required REA staff and professional development activities and to determine whether these activities impacted classroom instruction. The study was limited to REA schools in East Tennessee during the first year of implementation. Staff and professional development activities were centered on the essential elements of reading and the educational term of “balanced reading” was embraced. The essential elements of balanced literacy, as delineated by the National Reading Panel include phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension instruction. Data were collected using a teacher survey measuring teacher perception prior to and during REA implementation. Observational data were collected using identical paired observations, gathered on two occasions by the REA state consultant during official visits. A series of paired t-tests were used to determine whether there were significant pre-to-post changes in teacher perception of their teaching practice and pre-to-post changes in classroom observations. The overall alpha level or “significance level” was set at .05 for each significance test. From this study, teacher perception of classroom practice was significantly improved; however, classroom observations did not correlate with those findings. It is assumed that as teacher perception changes, a change of teacher practice will likely follow.

The intent of this qualitative study was to understand the impact of job-embedded professional development coaches on teacher practice. Coaches in this study worked with teachers to plan lessons, model lessons with feedback, and disaggregate data. This qualitative study was conducted using interviews of coaches to gain their perceptions of the work they did with teachers and how this work influenced teacher practice. Teachers were interviewed to determine their perceptions of the impact coaches' work had on their classroom practices. Analysis of the coaches and teachers' reflective journals was also conducted to establish the participants' perceptions of their work together and the impact on teacher practice. Several themes emerged from the data analysis that assisted the researcher in forming the theoretical framework for the study. All coaches and teachers interviewed reported feeling positive about the work they did together planning lessons, modeling lessons with feedback, and disaggregating data. The researcher identified several factors that promoted the coaches' influence on teacher practice and several barriers that limited the coaches' influence on teacher practice. Teachers also identified traits and actions of an effective coach. Based on the research all the teachers grew in various ways from the work they did with the coaches. Teachers reported changing their practices and attitudes as well as trying new approaches, strategies, and programs. They appreciated coaches' help with classroom management, discipline, and emotional support. Some teachers gained confidence in their teaching abilities, increased their expectations of students, and allowed students to take charge of their own learning. They went deeper with their teaching and engaged more in reflective thinking about why they do things the way they do. Job-embedded coaching has the potential to influence teachers' practices and subsequently student learning. Recommendations from study findings may assist teachers, coaches, and school leaders in building an effective coaching model.

Teacher quality has been identified as the most crucial factor in raising student achievement. In order for teachers—and consequently their students—to be successful, teachers must participate in life-long career development. For this reason, a great deal of time and resources are spent on professional development. However, professional development for teachers is not always effective. This study was aimed at identifying those elements that led to success in professional development conducted in one rural Utah school district. The study operated within the theoretical framework of Appreciative Inquiry, which consists of collecting evidence by interviewing successful participants to gather stories that reveal what works best in an organization. For this study, four elementary teachers in the district were identified as having made positive changes in their classrooms as a result of participation in the professional development. These teachers were interviewed and their stories were recorded. Then, their stories were analyzed and the following common themes emerged: validation, modeling with children, "doable" practices, reanimation of previously learned content and desire to learn more. These themes were then categorized into two sections that represent instructional strategies used by the presenter and teacher behaviors that were influenced by the identified instructional strategies. While research has identified many elements of quality professional development programs, these additional elements that emerged deserve further investigation. Results may provide useful information when designing professional development that will encourage teachers to take up promoted practices.

Review of: Yough, M., & Anderman, L. H. (2023). Teaching to prepare advocates. Information Age Publishing, Inc. (ISBN: 9798887300696) Excerpt: "Teaching to Prepare Advocates is the fourth volume in a larger six-part series, Theory to Practice: Educational Psychology for Teachers and Teaching. This volume is edited by Mike Yough and Lynley H. Anderson and split into two parts. Part 1 is the bulk of the text, with seven chapters focused on advocating for educational psychology. Part 2 devotes four chapters to advocating for students [...]"

This research study examined the long-term effects of a professional development study tour to Southeast Asia that took place in 2001. Participants included ten public school teachers from Western Massachusetts, which has a significant population of people of Vietnamese and Cambodian descent. Funded by a Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad grant, the purpose of the study tour was to increase teacher awareness, knowledge and understanding of contemporary Southeast Asia so that they could more effectively address the educational needs of students representing diverse cultural backgrounds, particularly immigrant and refugee youth, through the development of culturally relevant curricula and lesson plans. From 2007 to 2009, this researcher conducted a series of phenomenological interviews with nine of the original participants to investigate more deeply how their personal and professional lives were impacted by the study tour experience. The decision to interview using a phenomenological approach was based on the belief that in order to more fully understand how and why individuals constructed meaning(s) from certain experiences, it was essential to have some contextual knowledge of that person's life, including those formative episodes that helped establish their original worldview. Analysis of study tour impact areas revealed areas of personal and professional growth particularly as it pertained to the development of sociocultural consciousness, cultural understanding, sensitivity and empathy towards students of diverse cultural backgrounds. Another finding was that the experience of being an "outsider" in another country provided the context for teachers to explore and critically reflect on issues related to their own social and cultural identities. Further analyses revealed that the overall impact of the study tour varied based on the participant's prior intercultural and life experiences. Participants with less experience and practical knowledge of issues of multiculturalism and identity were more likely than their counterparts to come away from the experience with more profound changes to their worldview. This study is theoretically grounded with research in multicultural education, experiential education, transformative learning, global education and study abroad.

Although many school districts provide inservice professional development to build the capacities of novice principals, some of these supports are proving inadequate in recruiting or retaining qualified leaders. Research on capacity development for novice principals is scarce, yields mixed results, and employs methodology which has invited participant response bias. Reflecting the school level, gender, and Title I experience of novice principals within a large school district in the mid-Western United States, a sample of 24 novice principals respond to semi-structured interview questions. Iterations of transcription coding, member-checking, and analysis yield findings that help school districts better understand the capacity development process of novice principals studied. Novice principals in this study identify facing managerial problems more than instructional or student-related demands. While addressing various demands they face, novice principals draw less on their knowledge or skillsets, but rely much more on their dispositional capacities. In citing sources that developed their capacities to meet these various professional demands, principals ascribe professional sources only slightly more than personal sources in having built their capacities. Further inspection reveals that the sources of capacity development are not as influential as the types of capacity-building through which administrators learn: regardless if the capacity source came from their personal lives or professional careers, principals ascribe their capacities being built primarily from experiential learning, and the constructed learning from passively observing competent models. This preference of certain types of capacity development greatly influence how new principals learn, and has greater effect over capacity development than the source of that capacity, or where the capacity gained that capacity. This held true even when considering all types of demands to which administrators apply these capacities. A principals job requires skillsets beyond instructional leadership alone. This is especially true as districts embrace an emerging conceptualization of school leadership that posits a principals influence on student learning is greatest when applied through intentional, learning-driven organizational management. In focusing solely on principal skillset and knowledge development during trainings, districts neglect the capacity domain that principals utilize most often in addressing demands, which is also the capacity domain through which their knowledge and skills are operationalized: their dispositions. Knowing that principals ascribe certain types of capacity building as the key factor in their development rather than the sources of their capacities, school districts can better embrace, systematize, and leverage these types of capacity development. Such adjustments will more directly and effectively target the capacity development of novice principals, enabling them to address the professional demands they face.

This qualitative inquiry explores the outcomes that professionals, and their companies, experience when they participate in a student-professional reverse mentorship. Professional development is used across all trades and professions as a way to increase employee skills and improve product/service quality. Reverse mentoring, where a novice teaches the more experienced individual, is a relatively new approach in professional development. When the reverse mentoring scenario is between students and professionals, instead of professionals and their colleagues, we know that students benefit from the reverse mentoring process but little is known about what outcomes the professionals experience. This research reports that professionals experience similar benefits through student-professional reverse mentoring as they experience through colleague reverse mentoring.