This recently published research report [http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20164010/pdf/20164011.pdf] provides an account of the effects of a resource intensive CPD programme with a very specific focus and a plausible sounding theory of change. It was sustained, over a year, although the lion’s share (85%) took place over the summer (holidays?). It offered substantial support (93 hours in total) and there were follow up activities comprising a series of five collaborative Mathematics Learning Communities meetings focused on analysing student work and three hour video feedback sessions focused on reinforcing the maths content. But although it did enhance teachers’ subject knowledge it had a small negative impact on pupils’ learning. Why?
Plausible as the programme sounds it in fact departs significantly from the findings of the systematic reviews of systematic review “Developing Great Teaching “, Cordingley et al 2015 and the new National CPD standard https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standard-for-teachers-professional-development .
I have written about this briefly in a short contribution I was asked to make to a collaborative TDT blog, but once I rolled my sleeves up to explore the study I thought the issues were also worth a slightly longer set of reflections on the match between the evidence and the CPD standards – focussed mainly on application and planning
- The 80 hours of PD sessions were focused on immersion in depth in developing mathematical knowledge. They also took place over the summer when it would have been difficult for teachers to plan to apply, test and refine the application of their developing knowledge for the classes they taught – they hadn’t even met them yet. Planning is a key moment in professional learning. It is very often the point at which professional practice is most permeable to new ideas and approaches- because it is itself a reflective activity that sits outside the dynamic interactions of the classroom.
- The Mathematic Learning Communities, were designed to support enactment in the classroom but the focus was reviewing student work not, apparently, planning for the future. Where are the sustained, iterative cycles of “plan, do and review” based learning?
- The focus on analysing “the richness, coherence, and depth of teachers’ mathematics instruction; their capacity to promote student participation and the precision and clarity of their mathematical language” in the mathematics communities also seems to be more about the teaching than the learning; where, for example, is the detail about the goals for students? Where is the unpacking of beliefs and assumptions about learners and learning?
- Although use of video is a powerful learning tool, the design here seems to be restricted to the reinforcing teacher content knowledge. It also sounds as though the discussion was tightly directed by the facilitators. This seems, on the face of it, to ignore the huge potential for deep teacher learning through evidence-rich exploration of the interaction between their own and their students’ learning which is connected with enabling teachers to pursue their own questions about learning episodes.
- The absence of any direct sense of the CPD being about making a difference for specific pupils reinforces this point. It looks as if the problem the providers were trying to solve was a problem, as they saw it, in the teachers and teaching. But there is no evidence of efforts to involve the teachers in close diagnostic work for their pupils in the context of their developing mathematical knowledge, or on identifying what specifically the learning of their pupils would look like if their professional learning was successful. It seems as if the depth of the focus on teachers’ mathematical knowledge has dislocated the CPD support from its ultimate goal of enhancing pupils’ learning.
- There looks to be quite a bit of emphasis on mathematical theory which is helpful. Theory and underpinning principles are helpful to teachers in personalising learning support for their pupils. But I find myself wondering whether there were any efforts to relate the theory about maths to theory about teaching and learning. Without a theory about application as well as content teachers find it very hard to use new knowledge and understanding in ways that are tailored to the needs of different contents and groups of pupils