Page 140 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind
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Chapter 5. Perspective of the teachers – professional development
developing on both dimensions of routines and innovations, but the model was also used in this study to explore and describe several types of learning routes.
Two important limitations of our research have to be mentioned. The first is the fact that this study relied on self-reporting by teachers. This was because we were specifically interested in teachers’ goals and their perceptions of the achievement of their goals. Moreover, the implementation of the procedures of the teaching approach was also based on teachers’ data about their design of the lesson series. More objective or quasi-objective outcome measures, such as assessments, observations and student test scores, could be taken into account in future research. In a further study teachers’ behaviour could be observed using a standardized observation form to find out how they implemented the teaching approach in their lessons. Teachers’ perceptions of achievement of goals could be compared to more objective standards such as learners’ outcomes.
A second limitation was the duration of the professional development trajectory. Although it lasted longer than the trajectories examined by many other studies on teachers’ professional development (Borko et al., 2010; Van Veen et al., 2011), − in total seven months (three months of preparation in meetings and four months of implementation in the classroom) − and the teachers were asked whether they were still using the method a year later, research into learning routes requires even longer monitoring in order to be able to map developments in teaching repertoires. Moreover, the data were again obtained from self- reporting. It would be interesting to observe and follow the teachers in how they continued to use the method in practice and to investigate whether the patterns in learning routes persisted or changed over the course of time.
Implications for Teacher Education and Professional Development
It is generally agreed that teachers’ professional development should be connected to teaching practice, focus on students’ thinking and learning, stimulate active and collaborative learning and use modelling for innovative practices (Borko et al., 2010). Increasingly, an adaptive approach to professional development is being endorsed which attunes to the teachers’ goals and the current situation in which they are working (Kennedy, 2016a; 2016b; Janssen, Westbroek, Doyle, & Van Driel, 2013), but that is difficult to realize in the context of an innovation. In their model of adaptive expertise, Bransford and Darling- Hammond (2005; 2007) suggest a stepwise progression that balances the development of routines and
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