As the language demands of education, careers, and community engagement become more complex, so does the job of the English language teacher. Not only do we teach language; we need to integrate rigorous content, develop critical thinking skills, and promote digital competence.
Much of this isn’t covered in the initial credentials teachers complete. In this article, Betsy looks at what the key to successful collaborative, sustained professional development is.
So how does a teacher keep up with all of these developments?
Research tells us that the most effective professional development practices are situated in educators’ professional contexts and take place over an extended period of time (Richardson and Díaz Maggioli, 2018), as opposed to the one-shot workshop. Equally important is finding ways to assess the effectiveness of any changes we make in our teaching.
In my earlier articles, I suggest that the instructional decisions we make can lead learners to greater levels of critical thinking, collaboration, effective communication, and the strategies accessing complex texts.
How do we know the impact of those instructional decisions on learning?
Let’s explore a couple of ways that you can work towards applying instructional practices to promote rigor and then assess their effectiveness in your own classrooms through collaborative professional development practices.
Peer-observation
Sometimes administrators give release time to conduct peer observations. If this is not an option, find a peer with a different work schedule than yours and arrange to visit one another periodically, or video record lessons and post to a shared drive for peer observation. It’s essential that you have a clear task and focus for the observation. The following example ties to some principles of rigorous instruction that have been outlined in my earlier articles. The peer observer is tasked with looking for evidence of the principles in practice and the impact they have on learning.
Sample observation task: Aligning rigorous instruction to learner needs
As you observe, look for evidence that your colleague is accounting for these principles to promote rigorous instruction.
| Practices to align rigorous instruction to learners’ needs | Note evidence of each principle in practice |
| All learners bring to class rich knowledge and experiences that must be acknowledged and incorporated into instruction. | I didn’t really see you doing anything intentionally to activate students’ prior knowledge, but they chose topics for the problem-posing task. Great! |
| Classroom interactions and tasks are authentic, representing how language is used in the real world. | Your choice of using problem posing and then creating posters represents the kind of things students may have to do at work or in a higher education setting. |
| Learners acquire strategies for accessing complex texts (print and digital). | You elicited steps needed to conduct their research; you elicited the guidelines for evaluating online resources (I see they are really well acquainted with those now). Maybe they needed some supports for organizing information in the texts they were reading – maybe some graphic organizers? |
| Classroom tasks challenge learners and promote higher-order thinking. | Creating posters and presenting those in a gallery walk really challenged everyone. I saw some students struggling, but with the roles they were assigned, the facilitator really made sure everyone contributed. I noticed some students weren’t asking any questions of peers during the gallery walk. |
(Principles excerpted from Parrish, 2019, p. 12)
After the observation, share the information you gathered. Did the instructional decisions account for these principles? Where did you see evidence of learning? What practices led to higher levels of student engagement? Where might you make adjustments? In this example, the teacher might add the use of graphic organizers as while-reading tasks and also prompts to use as they view peer posters during the gallery walk. This should be an iterative process with visits to one another’s classes over an extended period of time, with subsequent observations focused on the impact of adjustments made to teaching.
Communities of Practice (CoPs)
As part of a professional development initiative in the US, LINCS ESL Pro, teachers in a number of states formed CoPs based on their needs and interests. I worked with teachers on the module called Meeting the Language Needs of Today’s Adult ELL. Small groups of teachers at any school (or virtually with teachers with similar interests or working in similar settings) could work through the same process we used in this CoP:
- Start with a reading (or set of readings) on a topic of interest. In our case, we read this Issue Brief.
- Work through the online module (see also Integrating Digital Literacy into English Language Instruction) and share responses to reflection prompts with colleagues. This can be done in person or using online tools such as Google docs or through virtual meetings on Zoom or SKYPE.
- Apply practices and gather evidence of student learning (student work, learning logs, recordings) to share with others.
- Report on successes and challenges with colleagues.
“The students created bar charts with classroom data and used a paragraph frame to discuss the information gathered. Some students commented that they had never known a chart presenting the same information as a reading (or an interview). After creating a chart for themselves, they were able to see and interpret information presented in charts with more success than they were able to do before.” Mark Hux, participant in ESL Pro CoP Louisiana.
In addition to LINCS, many professional organizations (TESOL, COABE, World Education) host CoPs, study circles, and webinars. The key to successful collaborative, sustained professional development is to work with colleagues with a targeted goal in mind.
References
The Resources Tab for Teaching Adult English Language Learners: A Practical Introduction (Parrish, 2019) provides suggested readings, resources, and videos that teachers can use along with chapters in the book for ongoing professional development.
Also see Richardson, S. and Díaz Maggioli, G. (2018). Effective professional development: Principles and best practice. Part of the Cambridge Papers in ELT series. Cambridge University Press.
Read Betsy’s last blog post Supporting English language learners’ future success.