Improving Teacher Professional Learning: Inquiry Cycles and the Whole Teacher

Introduction

Professional development is widely accepted as a crucial part of many career fields, including medicine, architecture, engineering, and education, as a means for generating more effective and efficient best practices. It is an essential element of a teacher’s career, whether a novice or a veteran in the field. This idea is likely not surprising because teachers are considered “core lever[s]” in school improvement (Jensen et al., 2016, p. 11). Professional development plays an essential role in developing teachers’ knowledge and instructional expertise (Birman et al., 2000). Furthermore, Goldschmidt and Phelps (2009) have called professional development “the most promising intervention for improving existing teacher quality” (p. 432). One researcher estimates that American teachers spend approximately 5–10 percent of their work time on professional development activities (Gulamhussein, 2013). Moreover, schools and districts spend billions of dollars annually on such initiatives (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2014; The New Teacher Project, 2015), but with little gain in student academic achievement (Guskey & Huberman, 1995; Ball & Cohen, 1999; Guskey, 1999; Guskey & Yoon, 2009; Salinas, 2010; Borko, 2004; Buczynski & Hansen, 2010). The problem is simple: traditional professional development models are not always effective.

A growing body of research examines the characteristics of effective professional development (Guskey & Yoon, 2009; Birman et al., 2000; Webster-Wright, 2009; Darling-Hammond, 2000) and its essential role in school improvement (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999; Ball & Cohen, 1999; Borko, 2004; Sowder, 2007; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Hattie, 2009; Goldschmidt & Phelps, 2010). However, teacher professional development as a means of school reform has garnered inadequate evidence as to which models most effectively lead to increased student academic achievements. It is important to note the subtle nuanced differences between the terms “professional development” and “professional learning”. Although often used interchangeably throughout the literature, this chapter draws an important difference. “Professional development” communicates a worldview that teachers need developing or have some amount of improvement to make. The traditional view of teacher professional development suggests teachers are “knowledge-deficient” (Webster-Wright, 2009) and need intervention and instruction from external experts through passive development. While not all school leaders, district administrators, and policy makers hold this belief, this chapter offers a paradigm shift that honors teachers as experts in their field and acknowledges their learning needs as whole persons. This chapter employs the term “professional learning” to represent this shift from “improving” to “enhancing” teachers’ instructional practice. Professional learning represents the innovative, collaborative, inquiry stance that teachers take as life-long learners in control of enhancing their own professional expertise. The term “professional learning” offers a more holistic, reflective, and collaborative approach to the training that teachers experience every year. Professional learning focuses on constructivist and active-learning strategies for teachers that ultimately increase student academic achievement.

This chapter distills current best-practices for teacher professional learning so that school administrators, district leaders, decision-makers, and other stakeholders can develop and deliver effective teacher professional learning with the primary goal of increased student achievement. This chapter will accomplish this goal in three main sections. First, it examines the importance of teacher professional learning. Second, this chapter identifies the primary problems around traditional professional development. Third, and finally, it identifies potential solutions and makes recommendations for effective teacher professional learning that supports early career teachers. The goal is that the vast time commitment and monetary expenditures on teacher professional learning leads to greater student achievement. This chapter proposes that a cycle of inquiry model of teacher professional learning yields the increase in student learning by supporting early career teachers.