Content area
Full Text
This longitudinal qualitative study investigated the impact on teacher participants of using a unique laboratory approach to professional development: the Team Teaching and Learning (TTL) framework, which integrates five traits from Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, and Yoons (2001) empirical research on teacher professional learning, including content knowledge, active learning, coherence, collective participant, and duration. Participants included 24 teachers in one high-poverty school district in the Northwest United States who participated in a three-week summer professional learning experience. Results indicated seemingly high implementation of professional development content, which also appeared to be sustained over the two-year time frame of the study. This pilot study of TTL contributes to literature on collaborative teacher learning and provides school leaders with numerous recommendation strategies that make implementation successful. The TTL framework is founded in empirical research and utilizes best practices for teacher and adult learning.
Keywords: professional development, teacher learning, team teaching
Introduction
Although 99% of public school teachers and 95% of private school teachers reported participating in professional development (PD) experiences in the previous 12 months (Schools and Staffing Survey, 2011), teachers generally report low satisfaction with most professional development experiences (i.e., Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2014; Wei et al., 2009). This issue is compounded because professional development is expensive: in just one year, $1.5 billion of federal government money is spent on teacher development (Birman et al., 2007), with some districts spending up to $18,000 per teacher, per year, on professional development (Jacob & McGovern, 2015). Yet, there is evidence that shows that investing in teacher professional development, when implemented with care, can save districts money, improve student learning, and reduce teacher turnover (Guskey & Yoon, 2009; Villani, 2009; Villar & Strong, 2007). More research is needed to advocate for meaningful teacher learning experiences that can benefit students and engage adult learners.
While teachers appear to be unsatisfied with their professional development experiences, there is a plethora of research identifying characteristics of effective teacher development. These characteristics include empowering teachers through selfimprovement, promoting reflective practice, extending learning experiences over time, and ensuring teachers participate in hands-on learning (Butler, Lauscher, Jarvis-Selinger, & Beckingham, 2004; DarlingHammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Garet et al., 2001; Joyce & Showers, 2002; West, 2002). Additionally, literature suggests that professional development should be...