Summaries of 15 Strategies for Professional Development

Curriculum

3: Curriculum Implementation

Curriculum is the way content is designed and delivered. It includes the structure, organization, balance, and presentation of the content in the classroom (National Research Council, 1996). As defined here, curriculum is a set of materials that includes both content and instructional guidelines. The "set" of materials may be from one publisher or developer or may have been selected from a variety of materials organized by the school or district.

Putting new curricula into practice in the classroom can serve as a powerful professional development opportunity for teachers. Through using a particular curriculum with their students, reporting on what happens, and reflecting with others on different ideas and activities, teachers learn about their own teaching and their students' learning (Ball, 1996).

Note that this strategy focuses teachers on learning about the new curriculum and how to use it -- not on researching, designing, testing, and/or revising curriculum, as will be described in Strategy 5, Curriculum Development and Adaptation.

The Strategy in Action

This strategy relies on teachers having access to high quality curriculum materials, developed by people with expertise in content and pedagogy, as well as sufficient resources and time to design, test, and refine the materials for use in classrooms with diverse students.

Teachers and professional developers need to work together to decide how the curriculum will be used with students and the milestones that will be met at different points in the implementation process. Over time, teachers need to be given different kinds of support, tailored to their changing needs. Teachers share insights with one another as they implement the new curriculum. They also coach one another, conducting classroom visits to support the learning of both teachers and students.

It is crucial that school officials acknowledge that implementing curriculum takes time, resources, and a commitment to reform. In addition, the district must institutionalize the change by ensuring the continued use of the curriculum after the initial phases. Plans must be established for ongoing professional development for all teachers and support of new teachers or teachers who change grade levels.

Finally, mechanisms for evaluation must be developed. While data may include information about student learning outcomes, evaluation of the implementation strategies are essential, especially in the early stages. Teachers and professional developers can then use this information to adjust what they are doing.

Issues to Consider

While virtually all schools implement new curricula at some time, often they do not organize the implementation in ways that promote effective professional development. It is not uncommon for curriculum to be changed and teachers to have opportunities for professional development with no connection between the two.

Using curriculum implementation as a vehicle for professional development combines two major pieces of the system -- curriculum and teaching -- so changes will reinforce both. A second benefit is the efficiency of teachers learning directly what they need to teach. This contrasts with the situation in which teachers learn content and teaching strategies separately, but they have no ready-made vehicle to put these together in their classrooms. Finally, this strategy is also beneficial because it provides a focus for teacher reflection.

On the other hand, professional developers must recognize the tension between a mandate to implement a new curriculum and teacher creativity. It is important for teachers to know how much adaptation they can do and still be viewed as implementing the curriculum effectively. The nature of acceptable adaptations requires early and ongoing negotiation.

One additional danger with this approach is that professional development support will stop once (or before) the curriculum is fully in place. This disregards the need for continuous deepening of teacher knowledge and skills. The mechanisms for teacher reflection, sharing, assessment, and adjustment should become part of the overall school routine.

References for strategy 3

4: Curriculum Replacement Units

Curriculum replacement units are not designed to supplement the existing curriculum, rather they are coherent chunks that provide an alternative experience with traditional topics or introduce new topics that are not currently part of the curriculum. They illustrate the way state and national standards documents say mathematics should be taught. This strategy offers a window through which teachers can glimpse new teaching in action; with this strategy, teachers can engage in different teaching practices without overhauling the entire program.

Replacement units are used for professional development in two ways. In the first case, it is not intended that the units be "adopted" or used over the long-term. Rather, the units are used to stimulate teacher reflection and understanding of how content should be taught. The second use of replacement units shares these goals, but the intention is to replace the entire curriculum, one or two units at a time.

The Strategy in Action

A key in this strategy is use of high quality replacement units with a strong emphasis on mathematics content. As Burns (1994, p. 2) notes, quality replacement units in mathematics "integrate important mathematical topics and help students make sense of mathematics; appeal to students because the activities stimulate their thinking and imaginations and make mathematics interesting; appeal to teachers because they have been tested in classrooms and reflect input from teachers with experience teaching them; offer clear teaching plans, yet are broad enough to accommodate teachers veering from the plans to follow leads from students or add their own ideas; provide direction for assessing student understanding; allow for a span of abilities and interests; encourage students to communicate about mathematics, both orally and in writing; and provide opportunities for students to work individually and cooperatively."

Criteria for selection of replacement units include:

• Units must teach important mathematics concepts in ways recommended by the state and national standards;

• Units must stand alone and require only equipment and materials readily available to the teacher;

• Units must be grade-level appropriate and accessible to a wide range of students.

The best replacement units are carefully designed with sufficient investment of money, time, and expertise. Given teachers' limited time and resources, curriculum units created by expert curriculum developers are usually better learning tools than units teachers develop themselves. As teachers learn how to implement replacement units, they need to be grounded in the theoretical and practical aspects of the new teaching approach. This may involve trying out the activities as learners, attending workshops where they can learn from teachers experienced in the units, and practicing the new techniques.

When teachers try out the units in their own classrooms, they deepen their ownership of the new teaching strategies. Then they need a chance to evaluate the impact these practices have on students. Opportunities for dialog deepen understanding and can motivate teachers to broaden their application of the new approach to other parts of their curriculum.

If teachers are expected to try out new teaching practices in their classrooms, they need assurance that experimentation is supported by administration and parents. Teachers also cannot be expected to add new curriculum units to their already over-loaded existing curriculum. Something has to be abandoned so that teachers can successfully implement replacement units.

Issues to Consider

Use of curriculum replacement units is a cost effective approach to providing professional development. However, no strategy is without its disadvantages. One disadvantage of replacement units is that teachers may place too much emphasis on the units and not enough on the learning experiences -- both theirs and their students' -- that come from using them. They often begin to teach the units without examining how to make the new content an integral part of their curriculum.

Another disadvantage of replacement units arises out of teachers' enthusiasm for them. In some cases, teachers attempt to combine a series of replacement units to create a whole curriculum. This well-intentioned effort often results in a curriculum that lacks scope and sequence, conceptual flow, and coherence. At other times, the replacement units become simply supplemental activities and do not have the intended outcome of improving student achievement.

Teachers who do begin to change their teaching practices through using replacement units and move toward integrating them into the rest of their curriculum, often experience a major stumbling block: finding quality instructional materials that incorporate effective teaching practices. In the absence of new materials, individual teachers seek to modify and adapt the existing curriculum. This desire for new instructional materials brings to the forefront other professional development challenges: how to help teachers ensure that appropriate skills and concepts are still presented to the students and how to evaluate commercially produced materials to select those that are appropriate for their students and also incorporate the new content and teaching practices.

References for strategy 4

5: Curriculum Development & Adaptation

In the past, the goal of curriculum development has been simply to create a new curriculum that will then be implemented within a mathematics department. More and more, curriculum development and adaptation are being viewed as effective strategies for professional development.

In this strategy, the term "curriculum" refers to content-specific materials used in classrooms as well as the articulated content matrix that identifies the concepts to be addressed at each grade level. Curriculum adaptation refers to the process of taking existing curriculum materials or content matrices and modifying them to more fully meet the needs of everyone involved.

This strategy is based on the assumption that those closest to the level of implementation are well suited to develop curriculum. Teachers come to the table with a wealth of knowledge that prepares them to develop or adapt mathematics curricula. Through the curriculum development process, teachers increase their content and pedagogical knowledge and reflect on their teaching.

Development or adaptation of parts of a curriculum also contribute to teacher learning because these activities cannot be accomplished unless teachers think deeply about how the specific section fits into the broader goals of the entire curriculum. They need to understand state and local frameworks, national standards, the appropriateness of content and concepts presented at each grade level, and the sequence of other topics offered in each grade level.

The Strategy in Action

For this strategy to be most effective it must provide numerous opportunities for teachers to learn from others with expertise outside the classroom. As teachers work together on a mathematics curriculum, they engage in research, collaborate with experts in relevant fields, and develop networks with peers and experts. In many cases, mathematicians are active participants with teachers in the process of developing or adapting curriculum, adding to teachers' opportunities to learn.

Most curriculum development or adaptation efforts begin with specific guidelines, ideally designed by all involved. Teachers and administrators set clear goals, define products, and develop an effective timeline. Everyone also must understand the district standards or curriculum framework. The next step is evaluating current practices, assessing what is needed, determining implementation procedures, and identifying a process for evaluating the final curriculum.

Administrators must encourage the curriculum development process by providing time and incentives for teachers to participate, ensuring access to resources and experts, and supporting long-term improvement of the curriculum that is ultimately developed. It is also essential that teachers are given the authority to implement the curriculum they develop or adapt.

Curriculum development or adaptation is most successful as professional development for teachers when it is voluntary. Developing and adapting curricula are complex and intensive tasks in which teachers need to choose to participate.

Issues to Consider

Before choosing this strategy, professionals developers must realize that teachers usually do not have the time to devote to the intensive process of developing curriculum -- researching, writing, piloting, revising, field testing, and revising again. Most frequently, teachers are available only during the summer months for such an intensive effort. While adapting an existing curriculum is a more reasonable task for a summer, this process is better conducted over even a longer period. Without time to reflect on the work, the professional development benefits of writing and adapting curricula are limited and the effort becomes one of simply creating a product.

A separate issue is expertise. Many argue that teachers are not the most qualified to develop curriculum. Although teachers often know what teaching and learning strategies are effective in a classroom, how children best learn content, and what content is age-appropriate at certain grade levels, some experts believe that they do not have the "big picture" perspective on the overall curriculum. Nor do they have specialized expertise of instructional design and curriculum planning, plus the deep mathematics content knowledge needed to craft a full sequence of learning experiences that build across grade levels. It is certainly possible for teams of teachers from across grade levels to collectively possess sufficient knowledge that, when given time and access to resources, they can be effective in designing a curriculum. The issue is not whether this is possible, but whether starting curriculum development from scratch is the best use of limited resources. This is certainly where curriculum adaptation has advantages over development. And, in either case, professional learning occurs during the process.

References for strategy 5

Citation information