Return-Path: <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id iBBJaCU19935; Sat, 11 Dec 2004 14:36:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 14:36:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <BAY22-F17CB1198E597D518BD9CA4CFA90@phx.gbl> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Eileen Eckert" <eileeneckert@hotmail.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1797] Re: From Tom, Any scientific evidence for professional X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Status: O Content-Length: 2487 Lines: 47 I, too, remember Tom's question, and that it produced storms of controversy over what "scientific" and "evidence-based" mean, but no answers from any perspective. There are a couple of studies in K-12 that come to mind: Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & Yoon, K. S. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 915-945. West Ed (2000). Teachers who learn, kids who achieve: A look at schools with model professional development. San Francisco: West Ed. And my favorite Focus on Basics article of all time, "Learners First" by Shirley Wright from 1999, describing her program's learner-driven improvement process. I think we do need to look at evidence of what matters, in professional development and every kind of program improvement effort; I don't think it's good enough to say teacher learning equates with improved student outcomes, so professional development must lead to improvements in student learning, because I don't think we can conclude that ALL teacher learning does lead to improvements in practice or to improvements in student learning and skills. Unfortunately, we can't rely on funding to produce the evidence we need. I'd like to describe the work I, and my colleague Leslie Harper, did with curriculum design around outcomes assessment, and the accompanying changes we implemented to support learner achievement of the desired outcomes (for example, use of online discussion components and research tools like Survey Monkey), and the improved learner outcomes with every iteration of the courses. We have mountains of data and our own observations. What we don't have is the time (or money to pay for the time) to analyze that data and report on our findings. And just a note on "scientific" and "evidence-based": I include trustworthy qualititative studies in my understanding of scientific and evidence-based, so my responses include those kinds of studies. Whether Tom does or not, it's up to each consumer of research to use their knowledge and skills to determine whether and with what qualifications they accept research findings, but I'm not going to assume that because he asked for scientific and evidence-based research, that only means the narrow current politicized definition of the terms. Tom, if you want to do that for or with us, we're just "up the road" in the Sacramento area! Eileen
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