Q and A with Tom Smith, "Teacher Professional Development in Math and Science"

topics: Learning Sciences

LSI Press Release

Thomas Smith, Associate Professor in Peabody College's Leadership, Policy, and Organizations Department, recently completed a major project on teacher's professional development titled "Teacher Professional Development in Mathematics and Science: Do the Policies Add Up?" The project was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Tom's final report of the project provides many insights into the state of the art of professional development of teachers. To gain a few insights we asked him to address the following questions:

What were your major research and education activities?

Our study uses currently available national data to study the association between state, district and school policy, teachers' professional development, and improvements in teaching and learning in mathematics and science.

Our major activities during the grant have been to (1) analyze measures of our study variables from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the National Assessment of Education Progress, (2) complete construction of a State Policy Database from available state-level policy indicators, (3) conduct analyses that predict participation in high-quality professional development based on teacher background variables and school level policy variables, and that predict the use of conceptual teaching strategies in both mathematics and science teaching based on teacher background variables and participation in professional development, (4) analyze relationships between the policy system, teachers participation in professional development, and student achievement using data collected by the US Department of Education's Planning and Evaluation Service for the Longitudinal Evaluation of School Change and Performance (LESCP) in 1997, 1998, and 1999. Activities conducted as part of these projects are described in the full article. (Link below.)

What were your major findings?

1. Teachers who need professional development the most are not getting it.
2. Content knowledge and participation in professional development are better predictors of teaching quality than certification.
3. Authority, not power, is associated with teachers taking more content-related professional development and increased interactions with other teachers around curriculum and instruction.
4. States tend to enact different attributes of standards-based reform policy simultaneously, with policy enactment associated with greater gains in procedural knowledge in mathematics.
5. There is little evidence of substantial improvement in teacher quality for disadvantaged (high-poverty) students between 2000 and 2003 and how states have structured their standards based reform policies do not appear to be linked with changes in the size of this teacher quality gap.
6. Eighth grade science teachers who majored in science and participated in content-oriented related professional development activities were more likely to use reform-oriented practices.
7. Many of the perceived barriers to implementing greater use of conceptual teaching strategies in mathematics in the United States do not seem to work as impediments in other countries.
8. Middle school students and their mathematics teachers do not agree on many aspects of what goes on in their classes.
9. Participation in math focused professional development significantly predicts 8th grade math teacher's covering advanced mathematics topics and increased coverage of advanced topics is associated with an increase in student math test scores.
10. Attributes of local- and state-level policy are more predictive of teacher participation in effective professional development in high-stakes subjects (mathematics) than in low stakes subjects (science)

What opportunities for training and development has the project helped provide?

Eight of the eleven Vanderbilt graduate students that have worked on this project had little exposure to K-12 standards-based reform policy before starting to work on the project. Through their work in the development of our State Policy Database, collecting and reading state documents, and indicators of state policy from CCSSO, Education Week, AFT, etc., they have developed their knowledge and appreciation for educational reform in mathematics and science. Students on the project have been co-authors of all of our papers accepted for publication.