Successful Long Term PD
Experience and research suggest that effective professional development models have some common characteristics.
Effective, professional development:
Begins prior to curriculum implementation and continues through several years of implementation.
Is centered on the particular curriculum that will be/has been adopted, in this case, CMP.
Develops teachers' knowledge of mathematics and pedagogy.
Models and reflects good mathematical pedagogy.
Addresses teacher concerns about change.
Involves teachers in reflecting and planning for improvement.
Creates strong leadership.
Includes a plan for training new teachers as they join the district.
Reflects strong support from administration and parents.
Establishes an expectation among teachers of working together to learn from and with each other during and after the formal professional development has ceased.
Change in itself can be problematic and the changes for some teachers associated with using any standards-based curricula are significant. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) (Hall & Hord, 1987, Hord, et al. 1987, Loucks-Horsley, 1989, Friel and Gann, 1993) offers help in addressing these issues. Teachers may need help moving through levels of concern, from non- awareness to ownership of new ideas, from a focus on themselves and their own needs to a focus on their students' learning needs.
The stages of concern can be described as:
Self-concerns - What is this new change and how will it affect me?
Task-oriented concerns - How do I implement this change? What do I need to do to make this change happen with my students?
Impact-oriented concerns - How are my students learning? Are they learning more and are they learning better? How do I work with others who are also implementing these new ideas?
Progressing through these stages of concern while one is implementing CMP takes time-two to three years is a good target.
The change process is ongoing with different needs surfacing during the period of professional development and implementation. Early in the professional development component, time is needed to address teachers' concerns about implementing CMP. In the beginning these concerns may tend to focus on management, grading issues, special needs students, tracking, skills, transitions to high school, etc. While these issues are important and should be addressed, they can divert attention from content and instruction. These concerns can be addressed gradually during the first phase of professional development. Let teachers have time to get their concerns on the table early in the process and be assured that these concerns will be addressed. Many of the concerns become less urgent as the teachers engage in studying the mathematics and sharing their knowledge with colleagues. These experiences help teachers integrate previous teaching practice with new expectations.
Good professional development to support a standards-based curricula like CMP weaves mathematics, pedagogy, and assessment together. To make significant changes, professional development must address teachers' stages of concerns and concurrently provide opportunities for growth.
Growth should focus on:
Developing a deeper understanding and broader view of mathematics (mathematical knowledge).
Strengthening teachers' pedagogical knowledge (teaching & learning).
Exploring assessment aligned with inquiry- based instructional strategies (assessment).
Professional development must be based on sound criteria and principles that have evolved from research and been verified in experience. The research discussed above as well as other research described by Loucks-Horsley et. al (1996), the extensive experiences of the CMP authors and staff, and the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM 1991) serve as important references for our professional development design. Examples of professional development plans and other related resources are available under Professional Development Resources. Three components-content, teaching and learning, and assessment-are core areas of the professional development model and each comes to the foreground at critical times during the professional development. Below is a rationale for the components that need to be included, and an order of inclusion that has been successful.
Mathematical Knowledge
An effective professional development model associated with preparing for and implementing CMP begins with an emphasis on mathematical content, with supporting pedagogy being modeled by the professional development leader. Teachers need to be comfortable with the mathematics embedded in the problems in order to begin to examine how the materials can be taught to reach their full potential.
Teachers benefit from examining the complete picture of how mathematical ideas build on previous ideas and how those ideas in turn provide the foundation for the mathematics in later units and in subsequent grades. Even teachers who have taught mathematics for some time will find that ideas that they have accepted without questioning are presented in a new light, one that illuminates both meaning and connections to other mathematics and to other uses of the mathematics. There is value in trying to see mathematical ideas as they are first encountered by a student, rather than reproducing what has been stored in memory. Asking, "How do I know this? Why does it make sense?" are not questions that teachers typically take the time to ask about familiar mathematics, yet they are at the core of understanding how students learn new material.
Good instructional decisions and practice rely on deep understanding of the mathematics that is embedded in the problems. We suggest that developing the mathematics of the units in early professional development be given primary focus, with any pedagogical discussions focusing only on how to help students learn the mathematics. Discussions of management and assessment are more effective if they occur toward the end of the early professional development. First developing mathematical and pedagogical content knowledge keeps the professional development from becoming mired in discussions of issues that as yet have no real basis for a substantive conversation.
Teaching and Learning
Having developed a better understanding of the mathematics within CMP, the focus of professional development can shift teaching and learning to the foreground. Teachers need to experience inquiry- based pedagogy in their professional development so that it will serve as a model for their own teaching. They also need to be involved in sufficient conversations about teaching problem- centered materials to feel comfortable during implementation.
More in-depth work on instruction after teachers have experience in teaching units is needed and is very effective in improving teacher practice. The idea that teachers should be encouraged to reflect upon, revise, and refine their initial understandings of the mathematics in a unit, and of ways to teach, after practical experience parallels the learning process that is expected of students. It is worth noting that when the focus shifts to pedagogy, teachers continue to develop their own understanding of the mathematics through conversations that analyze student work and assess student understanding.
While the teacher and student books serve an important role in helping the teacher implement the curriculum within their classroom, teachers also need time away from their classroom to talk with peers and to fully investigate the potential of the curriculum.
Assessment
Once teachers have begun using inquiry-based instruction in CMP, it becomes clear that traditional forms of assessment that focus only on skills may be insufficient to gauge the depth and breadth of student learning. CMP offers a variety of forms of assessment to support teachers, including embedded assessment, which may be unfamiliar to teachers.
Orchestrating different types of assessment requires new skills for teachers and should be included in the professional development program. Figuring out how to assess and how to grade assessments is a concern of teachers that tends to arise as implementation progresses. Therefore the time for assessment to be an emphasis in professional development is after teachers have experienced some of the curriculum. See Evaluating Student Learning under Teaching CMP. Equally important is the influence of assessment as evidence to promote teacher reflection and decision making. For example, with support and experience, teachers begin to see assessment as data to drive instructional decisions.