The process of teacher change: A longitudinal study of four middle school mathematics teachers' experiences during and after a two-year professional development program [electronic resource]
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-07, Section: A, page: 2535
Adviser: Douglas T. Owens
Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Ohio State University, 2004
Helping teachers access new knowledge about how students learn and developing teachers with skills to continually access new knowledge must become goals for professional development. As we learn more about how people learn mathematics, teachers must be able to access and utilize that knowledge without having to undergo another season of reform. Thus, in keeping with reform themes, professional development opportunities should develop teachers who reflect on their practices, search out solutions to identified problems, and use multiple tools to assess the effectiveness of those solutions. Full understanding and implementation of the process will assist teachers in initiating changes on their own
One goal of this study was to document changes that four middle school mathematics teachers made during and after a two-year reform-minded professional development program, and to understand the motivations behind those changes. A second goal was to understand how these professional development practices promote the practice of self-generative change. This goal was accomplished by comparing the teachers' experiences to the proposed cycle of change, a model promoting the practice of self-generative change. The data included documents and videotapes collected during the professional development program, and observations of the teachers' classrooms and interviews with the teachers two years after the program
This study found that the reform-minded professional development practices utilized in the program did result in changes in all four teachers' teaching practices. All of the teachers made changes during the program that matched the goals of the professional development program, but one of the teachers made most of her changes two years after participating in the program. The generation of continuous change depended on the kinds of feedback the teachers used in the process of making change, and on the teachers' abilities to self-regulate their teaching. Self-generative change was also dependent upon the teachers' ability to accept responsibility for their successes and on the establishment of a method for determining goals. The beliefs and knowledge of the teachers impacted the amount and kinds of changes the teachers were able to make and their ability to continue the change process on their own
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