There is a significant lack of educational research in which teachers’ talk about teaching is not mediated by researchers. In the public sphere, teachers’ voices rarely reach us unfiltered by the media, union and school district representatives, education reformers, and policymakers. What if we could listen to teachers talk about teaching unconstrained by any topic or agenda, in a conversation initiated by them? The StoryCorps National Teachers Initiative (SCNTI) provides an unparalleled opportunity to answer this question. In 2011-2012, hundreds of teachers talked about teaching with someone significant to them. Listening to these conversations enables understanding of teaching from the perspective of those doing the work, in their own voice. This study addresses the meanings and conceptualizations of teaching articulated by teachers. Three basic assumptions guide this research. First, because teaching is an uncertain craft (McDonald, 1992), I suggest poetics of teaching (Hansen, 2004) as a listening lens. Second, because the experiences of teaching are expressed in conversation, I suggest a prosaic approach to language (Morson & Emerson, 1990) which considers form and function. Third, I conceptualize teacher voice as a source of knowledge about teaching and the phenomenon by which we can comprehend its humanity, uncertainty, and unfinalizability (Bakhtin, 1981). Building on this conceptual framework, I propose a unique empirical approach to studying teacher voice: a synthesis of hermeneutics, metaphor analysis, and portraiture. The answer to the question When teachers speak of teaching, what do they say? is in the form of a portrait, a portrait of teaching composed of teachers’ voices. I find that teachers talk about four essential human phenomena: love, learning, power, and purpose. Within these constructs, I provide a critical interpretation of teacher talk about teaching that illuminates the complex and varied nature of teaching work. This study privileges teacher voice—literally and epistemologically—and presents research as an act of listening. It transmits and amplifies teacher voice to constitute a refreshed and reexamined cultural record (Lamothe & Horowitz, 2006) of teaching. And as critical interpretation of human experience, this research invites participation: a response to teacher voice. / Education Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice

Policy makers, practitioners and scholars agree that teachers need sustained job-embedded professional learning experiences to help students meet the demands of new accountability systems, higher education, and the workforce (Smylie, Miretzky, & Konkol, 2004; Valli & Buese, 2007). Research shows that job-embedded learning for teachers can improve student performance (Parise, & Spillane, 2010). Although, researchers generally agree about the core features of effective professional development (Cohen & Hill, 2001; Desimone, 2011), their findings do not provide sufficient guidance to practitioners and policy makers in designing and implementing on-the-job learning opportunities (Hill, Beisiegel, & Jacob, 2013). This dissertation is a qualitative, comparative case study embedded in a larger study, “Developing Human Capital Within Schools,” conducted by the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers. I analyzed collected documents and data from 142 semi-structured interviews of administrators and a diverse sample of teachers from six high-performing, high-poverty schools within one city. Three of the schools are state-authorized charter schools (one a restart of an underperforming school) and three are district schools (one traditional and two former turnaround). In this study, I explored how teachers experienced and assessed three practices intended to support improvements in teaching quality—teacher evaluation, collaborative data routines and peer observation. Teachers and administrators across the sample, described evaluation, first and foremost, as a robust, ongoing improvement process that incorporated frequent feedback to teachers, which they valued. It also played a role in holding teachers accountable for their work. All six schools had structured data routines that required teachers to collaboratively gather, analyze and respond to students’ learning data. Data practices contributed to high expectations for all students and teachers. Finally, the schools had a range of practices that allowed teachers to observe each other, be observed, and in some cases analyze the experience. Teachers’ responses, although generally very positive, differed across and within schools, depending on the school’s ability to address logistical and cultural barriers to peer observation. None of these practices were implemented as discrete, stand-alone initiatives. Instead, the professional learning opportunities at these schools were intensive experiences that teachers described as highly interconnected. / Education Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice

In the current education reform climate, retaining high-quality teachers is a critical aspect of maintaining successful school systems. Charter schools in particular tend to employ a human capital model that recruits young and energetic teachers, but they also seem to experience high teacher turnover. However, all school systems are grappling with the urgent need to retain teachers over the long term. This capstone explores the role of “people development” in service of teacher retention at DSST Public Schools, a high-performing charter network of ten schools in Denver, Colorado. I describe my role leading two major components of work in service of greater teacher retention: (1) developing school leaders to know their teachers deeply by tailoring their coaching and development approaches and (2) building on existing central office structures and systems to prioritize retention and development topics centrally. Through this process, I found that DSST had many best practices spread across many departments in service of developing and retaining teachers. Using a change management framework, I argue that collective ownership of retention is positive, but it must be tethered to a strategy that aligns the competencies of the adults, the conditions for implementation, the culture of the organization, and the broader organizational context. A human capital management strategy can create coherence among these components, the organization, and its people. In the absence of a clear strategy and priorities, DSST may find misalignment between many initiatives that are in service of retention and development. This approach helps to cohere a “suite” of best practices for optimal human capital management and retention of teachers. This capstone offers several insights for practitioners seeking to prioritize human capital and teacher retention efforts, such as aligning human capital goals to the strategic planning process, creating ownership of retention processes across the organization by tying it to principal and central office leader evaluations, and aligning a human capital strategy to the organization’s broader education or improvement strategy.

Many education organizations are committed to diversity, but few achieve it in their staffing. Organizations typically recruit from the professional networks of their existing staff. Selection processes can be influenced by evaluation bias, and interview experiences can be impacted by stereotype threat. Without focused attention to hiring practices, predominantly white organizations often maintain a predominantly white demographic profile despite a desire to diversify. TeachingWorks, an organization at the University of Michigan (U-M) dedicated to improving teacher education, engaged in an effort to try out a set of practices for hiring for diversity and excellence.  This effort intersected with an ongoing conversation about how to make explicit the ways in which our mission to advance justice through teacher education shape our work. Guided by recommendations from the U-M’s Committee on Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence, the team implemented practices designed to reduce evaluation bias and stereotype threat. During my residency at TeachingWorks, I coordinated our team’s effort to implement and learn from these practices. While we worked hard to implement the recommended practices, we also struggled to navigate tensions between the work the recommendations demanded and the timeline and design of the grant for which we were hiring. While our initial implementation did not change our organization’s demographic profile, it did lay a foundation of knowledge, practices, and tools that will better position us to hire for diversity and excellence in the future. In this paper, I will document our implementation, and suggest five areas of work that emerged as having been underdeveloped in this hiring process and may be opportunities for growth in the future. These areas of work include: developing a shared definition of and rationale for diversity; continuously developing the applicant pool; monitoring the diversity of the applicant pool; refining the way we use shared criteria to evaluate candidates; and interviewing candidates who decline our offers to identify ways to make our offers more attractive, especially to candidates of color. Our experience may be useful for other predominantly white organizations seeking to define diversity and achieve it through hiring.

Recent research on data-based decision making (DBDM) shows that while DBDM has been widely embraced, its use in practice is more complicated than simple models of data use would suggest. The question of how districts can effectively use DBDM is particularly critical if DBDM is going to be a major part of instructional improvement. This dissertation extends DBDM research through a case study of a district-level team of Data Inquiry Facilitators in a large city in the northeastern United States. The Inquiry Facilitators coached teams of teachers as they integrated the Data Wise Improvement Process into their practice. The first paper turns a critical lens to a key element of Data Wise and other DBDM processes: discussion protocols. I find that discussion protocols offer helpful structure for conversations but can restrict creativity, and that aspects of individuals’ personal and professional identities may intersect with their attitudes towards protocols. The second paper describes how the Inquiry Facilitators changed their theory of action about their work with school teams. They realized that data coaching alone was not sufficient and needed to be paired with content and pedagogical content knowledge coaching in order to improve instruction. The need for instructional support was particularly acute as teachers implemented the Common Core State Standards for the first time. The third paper focuses on the Inquiry Facilitators’ own use of data as a central office team. I find that in contrast to prior literature on district teams’ data use that has found it to be unsystematic, superficial, and subject to political pressure, this team was able to achieve double-loop learning through their data use process. I explore the habits of mind and structures that supported their organizational learning. Implications for supporting DBDM at the system level, the field of professional development, and DBDM research are discussed.

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Cette recherche s'inscrit dans le cadre du mouvement de professionnalisation qui a débuté aux Etats-unis depuis les années vingt. Cette professionnalisation, rationaliste a donné en éducation, un phénomène institutionnel qui considère très peu les spécificités de la profession enseignante. La présente recherche s'intéresse d'une part, a la professionnalisation réelle et pragmatique, issue des pratiques des enseignants sur le terrain des établissements et des classes. Elle concerne la construction concrète de la professionnalité enseignante dans les conditions réelles de l'enseignement au quotidien. Elle est abordée d'autre part, dans une perspective théorique, en tant que phénomène idéal visé par les praticiens et produit de leurs valeurs épistémologiques et professionnelles. Cette multidimensionnalité de l'objet de recherche a rendu nécessaire l'élaboration d'un cadre conceptuel qui redefinisse les concepts essentiels, à partir des spécificités contextuelles, des objectifs et des perspectives de recherche. Ainsi, plusieurs concepts fondamentaux a l'analyse du processus, dont l'enseignement, la professionnalisation et l'enseignant professionnel ont ete précises en fonction des situations empiriques. Au plan méthodologique, la complexité de l'objet d'étude a nécessité le recours à la méthode qualitative interpretative pour son étude et son analyse. La théorie enracinée a été utilisée dans une approche phénomenologique, pour élucider les mécanismes qui sous-tendent la dynamique et la vision du processus des acteurs. Cette perspective a privilégié le cheminement vers l'émergence d'une théorie substantive de professionnalisation. Les résultats montrent que si les difficiles conditions du travail des enseignants au Burkina démotivent certains d'entre eux, elles stimulent l'engagement de beaucoup d'autres dans un processus de professionnalisation de type personnaliste. C'est un processus de survie professionnel et social, fondé sur la construction de savoirs, de compétences et de pratiques socio-professionnelles. Son but est d'améliorer l'efficacité et les conditions d'enseignement/apprentissage, de soutenir la réflexion et l'action au sein du groupe enseignant a l'intérieur des établissements et du système. La professionnalisation souhaitée par les enseignants est un modèle de l'acteur social à construire avec le soutien d'une politique éducative négociée et intégrée, l'engagement fermé de tous les enseignants et de tous les acteurs éducatifs. Elle vise les attentes sociales de scolarisation, l'avenir socio-professionnel des enseignants que le devenir scolaire et citoyen des élèves. La recherche a réalisé de nombreuses contributions théoriques et conceptuelles. Au plan théorique, le modèle de professionnalisation vécue et le modèle de professionnalisation souhaitée ont été construits. La théorie substantive de professionnalisation a été élaborée. Les contributions conceptuelles sont de trois ordres: la synthèse des critères de professionnalisation en éducation, la professionnalisation de survie et la limbo professionnalisation. Afin de mieux cerner la situation empirique des enseignants, de permettre l'élaboration d'une théorie formelle de professionnalisation qui pourrait soutenir favorablement la politique éducative et de professionnalisation au Burkina Faso, des études similaires sont nécessaires a l'échelle nationale. Cinq principales pistes de recherches ont été dégagées, dont l'analyse et l'exploration apporteront un éclairage supplémentaire sur l'objet de la recherche. Ce sont: la culture et de l'identité enseignantes à explorer au coeur des pratiques; l'environnement éducatif et l'organisation scolaire pour créer des alternatives de partenariat agissant; la relation formation initiale/formation continue pour reconsiderer la place et le rôle des praticiens; la limbo-professionnalisation pour l'explorer en profondeur afin de le contrôler; le courant africain de professionnalisation pour le spécifier et le comparer aux courants existants.