Page 113 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

The Role of Teacher Leadership for Promoting Professional Development Practices

tional peers (Timms, 2011). Professional development is a critical means of shaping teachers practices
especially in a time when reform initiatives require significant changes to the way teachers teach and
students are assessed.
There are numerous models in which teacher professional development is conducted however the end
goal is usually the same, to improve teachers’ practice for the benefit of student learning. According to
Yoon and colleagues (2007) professional development affects student achievement through three steps:

First, professional development enhances teacher knowledge and skills. Second better knowledge and
skills improve classroom teaching. Third improved teaching raises student achievement. If one link is
weak or missing, better student learning cannot be expected. If a teacher fails to apply new ideas from
professional development to classroom instruction, for example, students will not benefit from the teach-
ers’ professional development (p.11).

Numerous studies have revealed the positive correlation between teacher effectiveness and student
achievement (Haycock, 1998; Hanushek & Rivkin, 2003; Marzano, 2003; Nye, Konstantopoulos, &
Jedges, 2004). Further value-added studies by Sanders and Rivers (1996, as cited in Haycock, 1998)
found that students who were assigned to three effective teachers in a row scored up to 30 percentile
points higher in mathematics assessments than children assigned to three ineffective teachers in a row.
Whether a reform initiative is successful in education is largely determined by the qualifications and ef-
fectiveness of the teachers who are implementing it. Teacher professional development is a major focus
of systemic reform initiatives (Corcoran, 1995; Corcoran, Shields, & Zucker, 1998).
In the United States, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was developed to establish consistency
in what students should be able to know and do at every grade level across the states for mathematics and
English Language Arts. The goals of the initiative is to raise the achievement of students as compared to
international peers, reduce remediation in college courses, and ensure all students are college and career
ready (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2015). In mathematics the CCSS require teachers to
change what they teach as well as how they teach. There is a greater focus on fewer topics at each grade
level and a higher expectation for students to master the concepts. Pedagogical practices form a balanced
approach to teaching that includes conceptual understanding, procedural skills and fluency. Adopting
a reform approach of teaching will require effective professional development for teachers to learn new
approaches to teaching concepts.

Mathematics Professional Development

In a review of the research on mathematics teaching and learning conducted for the National Council
of Teachers of Mathematics, James Hiebert (1999) found teacher learning shared several core features:

ongoing (measured in years) collaboration of teachers for purposes of planning with the explicit goal of
improving students’ achievement of clear learning goals, anchored by attention to students’ thinking, the
curriculum, and pedagogy, with access to alternative ideas and methods and opportunities to observe
these in action and to reflect on the reasons for their effectiveness . . . (p. 15).

Yoon and colleagues (2007) also examined 1,300 studies of professional development research to find
which types of programs had the greatest impact on student achievement. Programs that were lengthy and

94