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Journal ArticleDOI

A successful professional development program in history: What matters?

TL;DR: In this paper, a successful Professional Development Program for improving students' understanding of historical time, consisting of a training and the implementation of Timewise, a teaching approach in which timelines were used consistently, was carried out with 16 elementary school teachers in grades 2 (ages 7-8) and 5 (ages 10-11).
About: This article is published in Teaching and Teacher Education.The article was published on 2018-10-01 and is currently open access. It has received 21 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Curriculum & Professional development.

Summary (5 min read)

1. Introduction

  • In the past decades multiple reviews discussed professional development programs (PDPs) of teachers, although PDPs in the field of social studies are rare.
  • In the PDP in this study teachers adopted a teaching approach, named Timewise, in which they consistently made connections between historical events and the timeline, while using stories, pictures and videos to develop their students' understanding of time.
  • Linear mixed model analyses showed that students in grade 2 as well as grade 5 scored significantly higher on the post-test compared to the pre-test and compared to the control condition.

2. Theoretical background

  • Many studies identify characteristics for PDPs that could be effective in improving teaching practices.
  • Secondly, the “theory of instruction” relates to the relationship between the content of the intervention and student learning.
  • The theory of improvement is represented in Desimone's (2009) much cited framework for the design, implementation and evaluation of PDP's, inwhich relations are shown between design features of the PDP, increased knowledge and skills, changes of teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and instruction, and improved student learning (Fig. 1).
  • The arrows in Fig. 1 show that there are interactive, non-recursive relations between the different components (Desimone, 2009).
  • The authors will finish this section with a description of the PDP in the present study (Fig. 1).

2.1. Design features of professional development programs

  • In studies on PDPs various design features are mentioned that could be effective for teacher learning.
  • In their selfdetermination theory Ryan and Deci (2000) and Deci and Ryan (2008) also stress the need for autonomy, next to competence and relatedness, to enhance motivation and effective performance.
  • In addition, some review studies put forward that some of the more effective programs appeared to be directly carried out by authors or their affiliated researchers, who were familiar with the work of teachers (Kennedy, 2016; Yoon, Duncan, Wen-Yu-Lee, Scarloss, & Shapley, 2007; Guskey & Yoon, 2009).
  • PDPs need to facilitate teachers in learning how to use curriculum materials with regard to content, aims, approaches and underlying ideas, whereasmaterials should be carefully framed with regard to the representations of content and pedagogy (Remillard, 2005).

2.2. Teachers' knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs, about the understanding of historical time

  • The importance of content knowledge for teachers' classroom practice is confirmed in multiple reviews and often referred to as pedagogical content knowledge (PCK).
  • Therefore, teachers will need to gain insights into students' development in learning about understanding of historical time.
  • The use of the vocabulary of historical time develops from the use of relative time phrases such as “long ago” to the use of dates and names of historical periods.
  • The next paragraph will elaborate on the change in teachers' instructional behavior.

2.3. Change in instruction - the instructional behavior for the teaching of historical time aimed at

  • The intention of a PDP is that teachers use their new knowledge, skills and beliefs to improve their instructional practices.
  • This should result in improved student learning.
  • A small body of empirical studies confirms the assertion that timelines are effective (Hodkinson, 2003; Masterman & Rogers, 2002).
  • Some studies have shown that teaching with pictures and stories is helpful to stimulate students' use of the vocabulary of time and their reasoning about chronological sequence and characteristic features of historical eras (De Groot-Reuvekamp et al., 2014; Barton & Levstik, 1996; Harnett, 1993; Hoge & Foster, 2002; Hoodless, 2002; Levstik & Pappas, 1987).
  • For most teachers in the lower grades the teaching about historical time means that they have to develop the instructional behavior aimed at, since history in these grades usually does not feature in the curriculum.

2.4. The PDP in the present study

  • The PDP in the present study consisted of two 4-h training sessions, followed by a curriculum intervention with Timewise.
  • All materials were practical and user-friendly, and needed little time for preparation.
  • The aim of the introductory lessons was to introduce and clarify the names and characteristics of the eras on the timeline, for which PowerPoint presentations for instruction were included.
  • Teachers could select appropriate teaching methods and learning activities linked to the objectives.

4. Design and method

  • The present study further explores the findings from an earlier effect study, which showed a medium effect of the Timewise approach of .44 for grade 2, and .54 for grade 5 on students' scores in the post-test, compared to the pre-test on the understanding of historical time (De Groot-Reuvekamp, Ros, & Van Boxtel, 2017).
  • This study offered no insights into how or why learning gains differed between teachers, nor how the PDP contributed to the success of Timewise.
  • A mixed-method design was applied in which qualitative methods are complementary to quantitative methods.
  • Fig. 2 presents an overview of the instruments used, during different phases of the PDP.
  • After the training they answered questionnaire 2 on the support of educative curriculum materials.

4.1. Participants

  • Between February and July 2015 eight teachers from grade 2 (ages 7e8) and eight teachers from grade 5 (ages 10e11) participated in this study.
  • The teachers had between 2 and 40 years of experience (M¼ 17.13, SD¼ 14.44); fourteen were female and two male (Table 1), which corresponds to the situation in the Netherlands where the majority of the teachers is female.
  • Five teachers (Jill, Olivia, Mary, Alice and Mabel) wanted to learn specifically how they could teach history in their grade-2 classes, and two grade-5 teachers (Vanessa and Rachel) participated because they were not satisfied with their current program for history.
  • The grade-2 teachers added the Timewise approach to their curriculum, since they did not teach history in their regular curriculum.
  • Vanessa did not use her textbook anymore, because it had become outdated.

4.2. Instruments

  • Questionnaire 1 contained three positive statements and one negative statement on beliefs on the teaching of historical timewith a four-point scale, also known as Questionnaires.
  • In questionnaire 3 teachers could give their opinion on how the materials of the PDP were supportive in the implementation of Timewise.
  • The authors observed all teachers for 30e45min for their instructional behavior during one of the Timewise lessons.
  • The interviews were audiotaped with the teachers' consent and there were member checks on the transcriptions.
  • The authors measured students' learning gains through a pre-/post-test design (sub-question 4).

4.3. Data analysis

  • Because of the small number of participating teachers, it was not possible to investigate whether differences between teachers were statistically significant.
  • The authors coded the interviews in Atlas-ti, with codes for the educative curriculum materials and the four supportive methods (Kennedy, 2016).
  • With respect to the observations the first researcher rated sixteen observations, and subsequently a teacher trainer from another faculty for teacher training rated four videos, using the same protocol.
  • For each objective the percentages of teachers who repeatedly focused on the objectivewas calculated, as well as the percentages of teachers who actively engaged their students.
  • To answer sub-question 4 (learning gains in grade 2 and 5) the authors made an overview per teacher of the mean student learning gains, resulting from the pre- and the post-test.

5.1. How did teachers perceive the support of educative curriculum materials provided by the PDP?

  • Immediately after completing the training, all teachers answered to closed questions in questionnaire 2 that they had received sufficient support to implement Timewise in their classrooms, and that they had gained sufficient insights into the Timewise approach.
  • Teachers of both grade 2 and 5 were very satisfied with the lesson formats in the instructionmanual and on the website, as well as with the theoretical background knowledge and the materials to stimulate students' learning.
  • Afterwards she thought that this could have been confusing for the students.
  • Bought the story book or borrowed it from the library to read the stories at home.

5.2. Which changes in their beliefs and attitudes, and gains in knowledge and skills did teachers perceive?

  • At the start of and one year after the PDP the teachers responded on four statements about beliefs about students' development in and the teaching of the understanding of historical time.
  • The first statement was based on older theories and therefore negative.
  • Grade-5 teachers mentioned similar experiences, as George explained: “I became convinced that it works well to start with the classroom timeline”, and Rose remarked: “The students reacted very positively, they now have a better understanding of the eras and of dates and centuries”.
  • Table 4 shows that before the PDP teachers felt not to a little competent in their knowledge of and skills for the teaching of historical time, whereas since the PDP all teachers felt competent.
  • This had never been explained to me very inspiringly.

5.3. To what extent did teachers implement the instructional behavior aimed at?

  • The observations showed that, although the authors offered the teachers the opportunity to select teaching methods and learning activities, they used the educative curriculum materials according to the suggestions in the training.
  • Most teachers started a lesson with a short review of the previous lesson.
  • Furthermore, all teachers used the classroom timeline: often at the start, like Claire, who started and ended her lesson about castles in the Middle Ages with referring to the timeline and having the students attach a picture of a castle to the classroom timeline.
  • The observations were confirmed in the logs and the scores on teachers paying attention to the objectives and actively engaging students during the observed lessons.
  • Only Claire and Mary reported lower percentages in their logs.

5.4. Which student learning gains were realized by the teachers?

  • Table 7 shows the mean student learning gains per teacher, as calculated from the differences between the pre- and post-test on the understanding of historical time.
  • Claire and Olivia also reported in their logs (Table 6) that they had paid less attention to the objectives, whereas Jill reported having paid 100% attention to the objectives.
  • The two teachers with the highest student learning gains in grade 5 (Chantal and Maureen) showed the highest results on their instructional behavior in the observation (Table 6).
  • In grade 2, teachers did not give extra history lessons in addition to Timewise lessons.
  • Two grade-5 teachers (George and Emmy) spent more time on history lessons (85min in total) than most other teachers, but their learning gains were below average.

6. Discussion

  • The present study examined which components of a PDP on improving elementary school students' understanding of historical time were relevant for the success of the PDP, which resulted in a significant improvement of learning outcomes of students in grade 2 and 5.
  • It seems that teachers' motivation to work with the curriculum materials played an important role in the success of this PDP.
  • With regard to the positive effects of Timewise, it could be argued that learning gains might have improved because of the extra time teachers spent on history, since six grade-5 teachers gave extra history lessons, which were part of their regular textbook program (Table 7), in addition to the Timewise lessons.
  • In their review studies Yoon et al. (2007) and Kennedy (2016) found this as a positive effect for successful PDPs.
  • A drawback of the small sample was that it was difficult to apply statistical analyses to investigate whether differences between teachers' behavior and students' learning outcomes were statistically significant.

7. Conclusion

  • Whereas most studies on PDPs focus on changes in teachers' behavior, the present study included all components of Desimone's (2009) framework for PDPs, and it confirmed that the interplay between design features, changes of teachers' attitudes and beliefs, increased knowledge and skills and change in instruction leads to improved student learning outcomes.
  • This structure, next to the possibility of always being able to consult the materials for background information, may have supported teachers' feeling of competence.
  • Finally, the implementation of Timewise offered teachers experiences that appeared to have changed their beliefs and attitudes about students being able to learn about historical time.
  • Summarizing, recommendations from the PDP in the present study would be that it is important to provide teachers with attractive and user-friendly educative curriculum materials and clear prescriptions and strategies, within a structure that supports their feelings of competence and gives room for autonomy.
  • This research was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, grant number 023.001.084.

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Citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, Seixas and Torpey discuss the relationship between history education and historical awareness, and present a theoretical framework for comparing history education with historical knowledge and historical distance.
Abstract: * Peter Seixas: Introduction. I. Historiographies and Historical Consciousness. * Chris Lorenz, Professor of Philosophy and Medothology of History, Leiden University and Free University of Amsterdam. 'Towards A Theoretical Framework For Comparing Historiographies: Some Preliminary Considerations'* James Wertsch, Department of Education, Washington University, St. Louis. 'Specific Narratives and Schematic Narrative Templates'* Jorn Riisen, Institute for the Advanced Studies of the Humanitiies, Essex. 'What Is Historical Consciousness? A Theoretical Approach To Empirical Evidence'* Mark Phillips, Department of History, Universtiy of British Columbia. 'Historical Distance: An Introduction'* II. History Education and Historical Consciousness * Jocelyn Letourneau and Sabrina Moisan, Department of History, Laval University, Quebec. 'Young People's Assimilation of a Collective Historical Memory'* Peter Lee, University of London Institute of Education. 'Understanding History'* Christian Laville. 'Historical Consciousness and History Education: What To Expect from the First for the Second'* Roger Simon, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. 'The Pedagogical Insistence of Public Memory'* Kent den Heyer (ed.). 'A Dialogue on Narrative and Historical Consciousness'* III. The Politics of Memory and History Education * Tony Taylor, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Victoria, Australia. 'Disputed Territory: Some Political Contexts for the Development of Australian Historical Consciousness'* John Torpey, Departments of Sociology and History, University of British Columbia. 'The Pursuit of the Past: A Polemical Perspective'

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Abstract: In view of growing emphasis in the field of education world-wide, and particularly in the United Arab Emirates, there is a strong demand for the refinement of instructional practices through practical and effective professional development. Teacher-led Professional Development (TLPD) is implemented by teachers in the field, rather than by external practitioners. It involves collaborative and reflective meetings, peer observation, and the cooperative refinement and implementation of strategies. This study investigated educators’ perceptions of the value of TLPD, and explored their notions on its impactful instructional benefits. In a sequential mixed-methods approach, data were first collected via a questionnaire from 305 educators from private schools in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. Then classroom observations, semi-structured interviews and document analysis yielded qualitative data. The findings revealed that teachers perceive TLPD to be effective for: 1) collaboration; 2) meeting school-wide priorities; 3) building leadership capacity; and 4) creating professional learning communities; thus 5) consolidating effective school leadership. These findings may offer principals, policymakers and teachers’ solid insights into establishing a professional learning programme that contributes to effective reform, with practical and immediate advancement in pedagogy, positively impacting the educational process in the UAE and world-wide.

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Cites background from "A successful professional developme..."

  • ...De Groot-Reuvekamp et al. (2018) targeted exploring an effective PD program that improved students’ grasp of historical time....

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Abstract: Given the significance of teachers’ professional success in the adequacy of education, exploring the determinants of this variable appears crucial. To address this need, this inquiry inspected the role of well-being and emotion regulation in Chinese EFL teachers’ professional success. For this purpose, 357 Chinese EFL teachers were selected to answer three pre-designed questionnaires. Structural equation modeling (SEM) using Smart-PLS was implemented to analyze teacher participants’ responses. The structural model revealed a strong, favorable connection between well-being, emotion regulation, and professional success. The model also demonstrated that both well-being and emotion regulation were highly influential in Chinese EFL teachers’ professional success. The potential implications for EFL teachers, teacher educators, and educational authorities are further discussed.

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, this article pointed out that the professional development initiative in question will not yield quick or consistent results, at least not where policymakers and stakeholders think to look, and the obvious conclusion drawn by many that efforts to support professional learning were a failure leaves proponents and bystanders puzzled.
Abstract: Want to improve teaching and learning in public education? Mount an improvement initiative that centrally features high-quality professional development, reflecting the latest consensus and research evidence concerning “best practice.” In recent years, the answer is almost taken for granted by many leaders and policymakers, especially those situated in school district central offices and in state education agencies. The lure of professional development is understandable, given how much new learning contemporary reform demands of teachers and administrators and given the drumbeat urging students and school systems to rise to a higher standard of performance (Thompson & Zeuli, 1999). In response, it is natural for those responsible for reform to mount a professional development initiative tied to standards, curricular goals, and even the current assessment system and hope that it will help school staff realize the ambitious goals of the reform in question. It is very likely, however, that the professional development initiative in question will not yield quick or consistent results, at least not where policymakers and stakeholders think to look. The obvious conclusion drawn by many—that efforts to support professional learning were a failure—leaves proponents and bystanders puzzled. What went wrong? To many participants in these reform stories, it is obvious that teachers need help getting up to speed on the latest approaches to assessment, standards-oriented practice, approaches to student learning, and so forth in the context of standards-based reform. And how else to satisfy that need than to set up systems of support for professional learning with targeted resources, aligned professional development curricula, consultants and coaches, and so on? While the logic of such initiatives is generally clear and powerful, the issues these initiatives raise for the design and enactment of policy are anything but clear. Consider the following kinds of issues—each reflecting an important area of decision making— confronting leaders and policymakers in connection with professional development initiatives.

220 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors reported the outcomes of a project in which teachers sought to develop their ability to use instructional practices associated with argumentation in the teaching of science, in particular, the use of more dialogic approach based on small group work and the consideration of ideas, evidence, and argument.
Abstract: This article reports the outcomes of a project in which teachers’ sought to develop their ability to use instructional practices associated with argumentation in the teaching of science—in particular, the use of more dialogic approach based on small group work and the consideration of ideas, evidence, and argument. The project worked with four secondary school science departments over 2 years with the aim of developing a more dialogic approach to the teaching of science as a common instructional practice within the school. To achieve this goal, two lead teachers in each school worked to improve the use of argumentation as an instructional practice by embedding activities in the school science curriculum and to develop their colleague’s expertise across the curriculum for 11- to 16-yearold students. This research sought to identify: (a) whether such an approach using minimal support and professional development could lead to measurable difference in student outcomes, and (b) what changes in teachers’ practice were achieved (reported elsewhere). To assess the effects on student learning and engagement, data were collected of students’ conceptual understanding, reasoning, and attitudes toward science from both the experimental schools and a comparison sample using a set of standard instruments. Results show that few significant changes were found in students compared to the comparison sample. In this article, we report the findings and discuss what we argue are salient implications for teacher professional development and teacher learning.

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"A successful professional developme..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Next to content focus, active learning, duration, collective participation, and coherence (Garet, Porter, Andrew, & Desimone, 2001; Desimone, 2009; Blank & de las Alas, 2010; Opfer & Pedder, 2011; Van Veen et al., 2012), several authors emphasize the extent to which teachers have opportunities to…...

    [...]

  • ...…development provide insights, into the question under what conditions, why, and how teachers learn (see e.g., Kennedy, 1998; LoucksHorsley & Matsumoto, 1999; Penuel, Fishman, Yamaguchi, & Gallagher, 2007; Blank, de las Alas, & Smith, 2008; Blank & de las Alas, 2010; Sztajn, Campbell, & Yoon, 2011)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that even the youngest children made some basic distinctions in historical time and those became increasingly differentiated with age, and although third and fourth graders understood the numerical basis of dates, only by fifth grade did students extensively connect particular dates with specific background knowledge.
Abstract: In order to investigate elementary children’s understanding of historical time, we conducted open–ended interviews with 58 children from kindergarten through sixth grade. In order to overcome the limitations of previous research in this area, we asked children to place pictures from various periods of American history in order and to talk about their reasoning. We found that even the youngest children made some basic distinctions in historical time and that those became increasingly differentiated with age. Dates, however, had little meaning for children before third grade, and, although third and fourth graders understood the numerical basis of dates, only by fifth grade did students extensively connect particular dates with specific background knowledge. At all ages, children’s placement of most pictures revealed substantial agreement with one another and with the correct order; this agreement indicates a significant body of understanding of historical chronology. History instruction in the elementary g...

156 citations


"A successful professional developme..." refers background or methods or result in this paper

  • ...Based on literature (De Groot-Reuvekamp, Ros, Van Boxtel, & Oort, 2017; Barton & Levstik, 1996; Harnett, 1993; Hoge & Foster, 2002; Levstik & Pappas, 1987) three stages can be distinguished in this development: emergent, initial and continued understanding of historical time, in which students…...

    [...]

  • ...…in chronological order; use the timeline; identify characteristics of historical eras, and compare eras with each other and with the present (Barton & Levstik, 1996; Department for Education, 2013; Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences, 2006; Harnett, 1993; Hoge & Foster, 2002;…...

    [...]

  • ...…shows that teachers hold outdated beliefs related to the Piagetian stage theory about the learning of clock and calendar time being conditional for the learning of historical time and that the teaching of history therefore cannot start before the age of 9 (Barton & Levstik, 1996; Wilschut, 2012)....

    [...]

  • ...…of historical time also is a learning process that starts at a young age (Blyth, 1978; West, 1981; VanSledright & Brophy, 1992; Harnett, 1993; Brophy, VanSledright, & Bredin, 1993; Barton & Levstik, 1996; Wood & Holden, 1997; Foster, Hoge, & Rosch, 1999; Vella, 2001; Hodkinson, 2003; Sol e, 2009....

    [...]

  • ...…is helpful to stimulate students' use of the vocabulary of time and their reasoning about chronological sequence and characteristic features of historical eras (De Groot-Reuvekamp et al., 2014; Barton & Levstik, 1996; Harnett, 1993; Hoge & Foster, 2002; Hoodless, 2002; Levstik & Pappas, 1987)....

    [...]

01 Jan 2012

124 citations


"A successful professional developme..." refers background or methods or result in this paper

  • ...Nevertheless, the PDP did not match requirements of a minimum of 20 h of contact time, (Desimone, 2009; Opfer & Pedder, 2011; Van Veen et al., 2012)....

    [...]

  • ...Considering the short training time of the PDP the effects were remarkable, since positive results for PDPs with such a short training are rare (Desimone, 2009; Van Veen et al., 2012)....

    [...]

  • ...We based the design, implementation and evaluation of the PDP on the “theory of improvement” (Desimone, 2009; Van Veen et al., 2012; Wayne et al., 2008), which is represented in the model for PDPs in Fig....

    [...]

  • ...…we mentioned that increasing teachers' knowledge and skills and changing their attitudes and beliefs are important factors in PDPs (Borko, 2004; Cherrington & Thornton, 2013; Desimone, 2009; Knapp, 2003; Opfer & Pedder, 2011; Timperley, Wilson, Barrar, & Fung, 2007; Van Veen et al., 2012)....

    [...]

  • ...…collective participation, and coherence (Garet, Porter, Andrew, & Desimone, 2001; Desimone, 2009; Blank & de las Alas, 2010; Opfer & Pedder, 2011; Van Veen et al., 2012), several authors emphasize the extent to which teachers have opportunities to integrate a new methodology into their daily…...

    [...]