Online Professional Development for Teachers:
Emerging Models and Methods
Edited by Chris Dede
Harvard Education Press, 2006
In the preface to this edited volume, HGSE Dean Kathleen McCartney states that online teacher professional development is a "very important type of educational practice." The Dean's comment is supported by a topic search: for example, a Google search yields over 37,000 hits for the phrase "teachers online professional development."
Highlights of the search results further confirm the widespread use of this practice. For example, current news items report on the collaboration between PBS's national online professional development service and WGBH Education Foundation's Teacher Domain that will bring state-of-the-art online science courses to educators. In April, 2007, the National Education Association announced plans to put its workshop for new teachers online. Last summer the American Federation of Teachers launched an online course targeted to beginning teachers. While this approach to teachers' professional development is generally acknowledged as holding great promise, the question remains: What works and what doesn't work in this format? This volume, edited by HGSE professor Chris Dede and based on a conference he organized at HGSE in fall, 2005, is dedicated to demonstrating what works and why.
Twelve chapters written by practitioners and researchers examine online teacher professional development from its beginnings to its current state. The authors contribute solid knowledge and extensive expertise on the topic of teachers and online professional development. The authors' institutions and project settings range from academe to museums to public television to research organizations.
The reader is presented at the outset with a solid framework of practical application and educational theories which led to the development of online professional courses for teachers. Current online teacher professional development (oTPD) research is analyzed to identify best practices and to highlight ongoing research needs. Specific programs are examined in depth to offer evidence and insight into what works.
Recognizing the important role an educational institution plays in developing and offering oTPD, chapter two looks at one organization's success. The EdTech Leaders Online has a client base ranging from school districts to state departments of education to universities. It has offered workshops to over 20,000 educators. In evaluating the EdTech Online programs, several key principles necessary for success emerge. One principle is the importance of developing and offering high quality content in an effective learning environment. Research and practice have established that offering high quality professional development cannot be achieved in a one-time course offering. Instead, professional development needs to be "an integral, ongoing part of teachers' lives." The EdTech program is built upon high standards, and delivers sound practices around training, services, and ongoing support for its participant teachers.
Chapter three takes up the issue of ensuring changes in professional practice through the lens of the WIDE World project. This international venture, based at HGSE, offers online development courses focused on changing how a teacher teaches. Several factors have been recognized as key to affecting real change in teaching practices. On the individual level, teachers have beliefs and habits which may limit their integrating and practicing new ways of teaching. On the institutional level, organizational policy such as teaching to achieve high test scores may hinder teachers from engaging in new practices. WIDE World addresses both of these factors, individual and institutional, with its emphasis on "negotiated accommodation." Based on the model of teaching for understanding, WIDE World's online professional development framework gives teachers the skills to transform learning outcomes in their individual classrooms.
The next four chapters describe a program focused on mathematics teaching, mentoring of new science teachers, a master's program in science education, and the American Museum of Natural History's set of science courses. The online mathematics teaching program, "PBS Teacherline," has a five-year history of success with a recent renewal of its funding grant. Teacherline's goal is to expand its success linking teachers' professional development and student achievement, to demonstrate a link between teacher improvement and overall school success. This goal raises questions and challenges around program scalability, sustainability, and evaluation.
In the area of science teaching the issues of teacher preparedness and retention are particularly important, given current findings regarding the lack of science teachers' content knowledge and required classroom skills. To address this issue, a partnership between the National Science Teachers Association and two academic institutions began a program to provide science mentoring and professional development within an online community. The eMentoring for Student Success (eMSS) is working for both new and established teachers in eight states. Research findings from the eMSS initiative support its focus on the critical role facilitators and mentors play in providing effective professional development to science teachers.These specific initiatives and continuing programs illustrate the opportunities online delivery can afford to the field of teaching.
The concluding four chapters continue to explore the application of research and theory to successful and emerging online professional development practices. Specifically, chapter eight addresses the need for dramatic changes in teachers' thinking with respect to developing and using innovative curriculum tools based on current technology applications and accompanying pedagogies. An oTPD framework can provide a curriculum experience which ensures that teachers gain the knowledge and abilities to implement "technology-rich, inquiry-based pedagogy." In developing oTPD, the developers must consider all aspects of teachers as learners. From evaluation and feedback of oTPD programs specific course design requirements have become evident. One requirement is that the learning environment must be relevant to the individual teacher's needs, from the course content to the overall program experience.
Chapters eleven and twelve address the challenges of providing effective professional development. As always, scalability is a challenge to furthering successful programs. One experiment by the City of Milwaukee led to the development of a professional support portal. The portal initiative has on the positive side potential scalability to include districts, regions and other cities/states. This initiative, however, also has a greater learning curve for individual participants with its unstructured learning framework. The concluding chapter identifies and analyzes four challenges oTPD faces, and offers recommendations for possible resolutions around these challenges.
Overall, each individual chapter offers a perspective on the future of oTPD, based on research and practice through the lens of individual programs. As a whole, the volume offers a solid introduction to the place of online professional development in the field of learning and teaching. This book is also a guide to achieving all the benefits successful oTPD has to offer, while it serves as a cautionary tale to help avoid the pitfalls that a mediocre program can reap.
Online Professional Development for Teachers is available from the Harvard Education Press.
By Deborah Garson, Head of Research and Instruction Services, Gutman Library, HGSE
