Best Practices in Teachers’ Professional Development in the United States

By Laura Desimone, M. Garet. 2015

640 citations recorded by the source corpus.

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses best practices in teachers’ professional development (PD) in the United States (U.S.). We begin by presenting a conceptual framework for effective professional development, which suggests five key features that make professional development effective—content focus, active learning, coherence, sustained duration, and collective participation. We then describe the findings from recent U.S. research that has tested the five features, with an emphasis on the results of rigorous randomized control trials. We discuss several insights gained from this work and that have helped refine the framework. They are that (a) changing procedural classroom behavior is easier than improving content knowledge or inquiry-oriented instruction techniques; (b) teachers vary in response to the same PD; (c) PD is more successful when it is explicitly linked to classroom lessons; (d) PD research and implementation must allow for urban contexts (e.g., student and teacher mobility); and (e) leadership plays a key role in supporting and encouraging teachers to implement in the classroom the ideas and strategies they learned in the PD. We then examine three major trends in how professional development for teachers is evolving in the U.S.—a move away from short workshops, linking teacher PD to evaluations, and the use of video technology to improve and monitor the effects of PD. Finally, we discuss the challenges faced by districts and schools in implementing effective professional development.

Subfields: Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/31ffd06b4df5bb399f782d3985f17311d2bc44ae

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Education

1. David Blazar
2. M. Kraft
3. Barry J. Fishman
4. Dylan Hogan
5. C. Dede
6. F. Arbaugh
7. Aina Appova
8. Lorna M. Porter

Citations in the corpus

• Teachers’ motivation to learn: implications for supporting professional growth (2018, background): “Considerable research exists on effective professional development (PD) models, outlining critical features of successful teacher learning opportunities (Garet et al. 2001, Desimone et al. 2002, Gersten et al. 2010, Desimone 2011, Penuel et al. 2011, Desimone and Garet 2015).”
• Instructional Coaching as High-Quality Professional Development (2017, neutral): “…(Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001), longitudinal studies (e.g., Desimone, Porter, Garet, Yoon, & Birman, 2002; Desimone, Smith, & Phillips, 2013), and literature reviews of qualitative and quasi-experimental studies (Desimone, 2009; Desimone & Garet, 2015; Desimone & Stuckey, 2014).”
• Investigating relationships between school context, teacher professional development, teaching practices, and student achievement in response to a nationwide science reform (2018, background): “Research questions This study responds to the call for research by Desimone and Garet (2015) to validate Desimone's (2009) framework by analyzing how PD can translate into changes in instructional practice that relates to increased student performance.”
• The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence (2018, positive): “…features” including jobembedded practice, intense and sustained durations, a focus on discrete skill sets, and active learning (Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009; Desimone, 2009; Desimone & Garet, 2015; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001; H. C. Hill, 2007).”