The Importance Of Effective Professional Development

Focus on both content knowledge and specific skills to carry the knowledge

Effective professional development should be able to provide teachers with support for subject matter knowledge and opportunities to master specific skills to deliver the knowledge (Fennema et al., 1996; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001; Li & Protacio, 2010; Penuel et al., 2007; Timperley, Wilson, Barrar, & Fung, 2007). Such professional learning opportunities allow teachers to reflect, re-define, and re-create their teaching practice (Wilson & Berne, 1999), which leads to better learning achievement of their students. For example, Fennema et al. (1996) examined changes in teachers’ beliefs and instruction in teaching math while participating in a teacher development program. In this program, teachers learned the specific concepts about children’s process of mathematical thinking and were engaged in various ways of instruction based on the understanding of the concepts. Teachers showed higher achievement in their learning at the end and the change in their instruction led to their students’ achievement. This finding suggests that teachers’ professional learning becomes effective when they can learn content knowledge and specific skills that facilitate application of the knowledge.

Give opportunities to teachers to engage in self-directed, initiative, active learning

How teachers are engaged in professional development also matters. When teachers are self-directed and self-initiated, and thereby engage themselves in active learning (Garet et al., 2001; Li & Protacio, 2010; Penuel et al., 2007; Wilson & Berne, 1999), they can maximize the effectiveness of professional learning. Wilson and Berne (1999) pointed out that teacher professional lea...

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...ional activities (Li & Protacio, 2010). In addition, collaborative improvement in professional learning is known to lead to students’ academic achievement (DuFour, 2004; Goddard et al., 2007). For example, Goddard and his colleagues (2007) conducted a study to investigate to what extent teachers’ collaborative school improvement practice is related to students’ achievement. They found that teacher collaboration is positively related to students’ achievement in math and reading. Teachers’ collegial interaction and collaborative learning, therefore, should be promoted in professional development by encouraging learning groups, where teachers collaboratively plan, observe, and analyze each other’s lessons or other professional development (DuFour, 2004).

What kinds of professional preparation and development do teachers need to improve their teaching of CLD students?