Teachers' Assessments Of Professional Development Quality, Value, and Benefits: Results From Seven Annual Surveys of Summer Institue Participants
Date: March 2008
Summary: This report by Inverness Research Inc. presents the results of seven years of studies in which teachers judged the quality of NWP professional development institutes and assessed the benefits they, and ultimately their students, gained from participation.
Excerpt from Report
Findings from this survey make a strong case that the summer institute serves its purpose very well:
First, the institutes attract a wide range of teachers, and these teachers benefit from the institute regardless of differences in their backgrounds and contexts. This finding is significant because the NWP wants the leadership pool to reflect the diversity of needs and teaching contexts of teachers in the schools—teachers who will be participants in NWP programs led one day by these institute graduates.
Second, what teachers gain from the institutes is multi-faceted. They gain concrete strategies they can use right away, and beyond that, they gain up-to-date research and the motivation to continue professional learning. These results indicate that the institutes act as powerful launching pads for long-term professional growth. Importantly, in-depth qualitative research on the relationship between summer institutes and teacher classroom practice verifies and elaborates on this survey finding (Lieberman and Wood, 2003).
Third, NWP teachers are using teaching practices in their classrooms that are broadly accepted as effective and that contribute to student achievement. And while the institutes are reinforcing and promoting such practices, it is also the case that many participants were using them at least to some extent when they entered the program. That is, these teachers are not novices beginning to adopt effective practices; rather, the institutes build teacher leadership on a foundation of teaching experience. Teacher-leadership anchored in effective practice is the essence of the NWP model.
Fourth, the institutes provide a valuable experience and multiple benefits to teachers every year. This level of productivity reflects a mature NWP network that has accumulated very high capacity: It produces high quality programming reliably, and does so at a national scale. The NWP is a sizable engine generating a steady stream of teacher leadership into the nation's education system year in and year out.