Informed by the results of the pilot study (Ferraro, 2017) with fourth and fifth grade teachers and students, this dissertation study seeks to answer the original questions posed while expanding the questions based upon the suggestions marked in numbers 1 and 3 above. This sequential explanatory mixed methods study explores four major research questions.
1.8.1 Measuring Teacher Learning
The first research question enumerated below addresses teacher learning as a result of completing the professional development program. A hypothesis is that after teachers had completed the first 15 hours of training, they take away new learnings that may shape their pedagogy. Once participants complete professional development programs, they report the changes to their perception and practice of working with culturally and linguistically diverse students. I include this question to explore the relationship between teachers’ reported learnings with teachers’ subsequent shifts in behavior and practice.
One of my hypotheses is that teachers have meaningfully engaged with the ideas of sheltered instruction and understand it well upon completion of the professional development program. However, this may or may not be evident in the practice, while teaching English learners. In other words, teacher have gained new understandings and strategies to effectively educate their students but that these newly learned strategies are not applied in their practices during instructional interactions with English learners.
1) Have participants gained new knowledge of alternative teaching approaches for language learners as a result of completing this professional development initiative?
I’d like to problematize the notion that teachers can readily implement and apply new learnings into their classroom subsequent to a professional development workshop. This idea merits a deeper analysis that is complicated and enriched when compared to the data that would result from the third research question of this dissertation study.
2) Have workshop participants adopted new behaviors as a result of acquiring knowledge of alterative pedagogical approaches? Have teachers applied their newly learned sheltered strategies in their classrooms?
1.8.2 Measuring Student Performance
The third research question posed in this dissertation study is examined in an effort to contribute to and counter against the notion that the efficacy of teacher
professional development and further education will have a direct correlation to student academic achievement, as evident in student outcomes, most often standardized
assessments scores. Based upon the results yielded in the pilot study (Ferraro, 2017) which engaged a similar question as number 3 below, the findings suggested there was no significant difference between the reading assessment scores of students whose teachers completed more professional development workshops than the assessment scores of students whose teachers had completed fewer hours of professional development workshops.
However, one limitation of the pilot study (Ferraro, 2017) was that there were too few students in each group, e.g. n=16 students whose teachers had not completed any professional development workshops in how to effectively work with English learners and n=65 students who teachers had completed all 45 hours of workshops, to include authentic application of newly learned strategies in a classroom setting and coaching during observation and lesson planning. Nonetheless the pilot study (Ferraro, 2017), though limited to only fourth and fifth grade students and teachers, informed this
subsequent, more inclusive study insofar as I suspect that the first research question listed below will not yield a statistically significant difference among the three cohorts of teachers who have had varying degrees (0 to 45 hours) of education in sheltered instructional practices.
3) What results emerge from comparing the quantitative reading assessment scores of language learners who were taught for one academic year by participants who had and had not completed Best Instructional Practices for Effectively Educating English Learners (Verplaetse and Ferraro, 2011):
a. cohort 1 (control group completed 0 hours of workshops); b. cohort 2 (participants completed 15 hours of workshops); c. cohort 3 (participants completed 40 hours of workshops)
Though I suspect cohorts 1, 2, and 3 of teachers’ students will have comparable results, I include this line of research inquiry for the purpose of engaging in counter- narrative that is a constructive and positive contribution to the way teachers are
evaluated. In this era of high-stakes testing and performance driven results, teachers are evaluated based upon the academic progress and achievement of their students. A lack of
growth in standardized assessment scores, say from a pre-to post score over the course of an academic year, may not necessarily be indicative of a lack of knowledge gained on the part of English learners, primarily because standardized assessments are normed for native English speakers. Yet the results of standardized assessments are included in the data that school administrators privilege in determining student academic growth and, subsequently, teacher performance.
Hence, I include this analysis of student scores to contextualize, deepen and further the conversation of educator professional development. If educators engage with meaningful, purposeful and high-quality professional development workshops, is the evident that teachers learned new pedagogies and, as a result, changed instructional practices? Moreover, is this shift in instructional practices to effectively educating dual language learners borne out by standardized assessment scores of the teachers’ students?
1.8.3 Examining Institutional Support of the Newly Learned Practices
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, once every educator in the district has completed their prescribed number of professional development workshop hours, what are the teachers reporting they need in order to implement sheltered practices? The data that this question yields has great potential for empowering teachers and informing the leadership. By surveying teachers and recording their needs, administrators can choose how to respond. Leaderships can plan appropriate levels of support to sustain and further the sheltered instruction practices learned throughout the professional development program.
4) What have workshop participants reported they need in order to effectively implement the newly learned sheltered strategies at their classroom level and their school/district level?
In my analysis of the teachers’ voices, I juxtapose their articulated needs against the data from questions 1 through 3. In doing so, teachers’ comments are made visible through their collective voice and are afforded agency. Institutional reform often comes from the group up, from listening to educators. The data collected in response to this question provides insight into critical and necessary institutional shifts that ultimately yield effective pedagogies for dual language learners.