A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Designing Effective Development: Lessons from the Eisenhower Program - December 1999

Chapter 6

Structural Features of SAHE-Grantee-Provided Professional Development

Section Findings

• SAHE grantees use Eisenhower funds to support activities mainly in mathematics and science, but more than a third of teachers who participate in SAHE-sponsored projects are in projects that also use Eisenhower money to support activities in other subject areas.

• Over 80 percent of participating teachers are in SAHE-sponsored projects where the primary Eisenhower-assisted activity is a traditional type (e.g., workshops and courses); only 15 percent of participating teachers are in projects where the primary activity is of a reform type (e.g., study groups, teacher networking and mentoring).

• Most SAHE grantees' primary activities are of long duration—they last more than 40 hours and span from one month to a year; however, a small portion last less than nine hours and span less than one month.

• Most SAHE grantees' primary activities projects do not serve all teachers in a grade, department, or a whole school (i.e., collective participation).

• IHE projects housed in education departments, compared to mathematics/science departments, have significantly more reform types of activities, and have activities of significantly longer duration, both in number of contact hours and span of time. Research/doctoral universities sponsor Eisenhower professional development activities with significantly more collective participation than other types of colleges and universities.

The substance of activities depend to a large extent on the structure of the activity—specifically, the type of activity, its duration, and the groups of teachers who participate. The legislation recognizes the importance of these features of professional development. Although the legislation does not specify the particular type of professional development that SAHE grantees should provide, the law draws on research that says that "new and innovative strategies for teaching to high standards will require time for teachers, outside of the time spent teaching, for instruction, practice, and collegial collaboration" (Section 2001(4)(D)). There are specific requirements in the law that SAHE-sponsored IHE/NPOs provide professional development that is "sustained and intensive" (Section 2211(b)(1) and (2)). In addition, SAHE grantees are expected to fulfill the more general purposes of the law, which call for professional development that "is of sufficient intensity and duration to have a positive and lasting impact on the teacher?s performance in the classroom" (Section 2002(2)(E)). Also, the SAHE portion of the law says that professional development may be designed for "teams of teachers" (Section 2211(b)(1)), among other groups. This is consistent with the part of the law focused on districts, which emphasizes the importance of school-level participation, and encourages that the professional development "take[s] place at the individual school site" (Section 2210(a)(1)(B)).

Although there is limited research on the relationship between features of professional development and teacher or student outcomes, the evidence that is available supports the law?s emphasis on type, duration, and collective participation. The literature suggests that traditional methods of professional development, such as workshops, are not likely to extend over long periods of time and offer teachers opportunities for in-depth study to practice what they have learned, and to collaborate and provide feedback to each other (Little, 1993). Also, since these traditional approaches are less likely to afford teachers the opportunity for reflection on what they have learned and for in-depth engagement, these types of activities are thought to be not as likely to elicit the desired changes in knowledge, skills, and teaching practice (Darling-Hammond, 1997a; Sparks & Loucks-Horsley, 1989).

Further, proponents of systemic reform maintain that teachers who teach the same grade or subject area should be operating from the same subject base, and from similar approaches to teaching and learning. Researchers suggest that professional development that is designed for whole schools or groups of teachers from schools (defined as "collective participation" in this report) provide teachers with a community of learners, as well as the capacity to share knowledge and to learn from each other, and to develop and implement strategies to serve the specific needs of their students (Ball, 1996; Little, 1993; Newmann et al., 1996).

In this section, we report the findings from our SAHE-grantee survey that describe the three structural features—type, duration, and collective participation—which are emphasized in both the Eisenhower legislation and the professional development literature.

Subject Areas of Primary Activity

We asked each SAHE-grantee project director to list the subject areas covered in the project?s primary activity, including mathematics, science and other subject areas.¹⁰ As Exhibit 6.2 shows, the majority of teachers participating in SAHE-grantee projects are in projects whose primary Eisenhower-assisted activity includes mathematics only (27 percent), science only (18 percent), or a combination of mathematics and science (18 percent). Twenty-eight percent of participating teachers are in projects whose primary activity includes a combination of mathematics, science and other subject areas, and eight percent of teachers are in projects whose primary activity does not include mathematics and science.

EXHIBIT 6.2
Percent of Teachers Participating in SAHE-grantee Projects with Primary Activities That Cover Mathematics, Science, and Other Subject Areas (n=92)

Type of Activity

To examine the extent to which SAHE grantees provide traditional vs. reform activities, we asked SAHE-grantee project directors to classify their primary activity using our list of traditional and reform types of professional development. All types of workshops and courses are categorized as traditional, and the seven other types of activities are categorized as reform: study groups, teacher networking, mentoring, committees or task forces, internships, individual research project, and teacher resource centers.

Results, shown in Exhibit 6.3, indicate that about three-quarters (76 percent) of participating teachers are in projects that support workshops, and 55 percent are in projects that support workshops as their primary activity. Similarly, 38 percent are in projects that offer college courses, and 26 percent are in projects that offer college courses as their primary activity.

EXHIBIT 6.3
Percent of Teachers Participating in SAHE-grantee Projects That Offer "Traditional" Activities (n=92)

Exhibit 6.4 shows the percent of participating teachers in projects that support each of the seven reform types of professional development. Between a third and a half of participating teachers are in projects that use Eisenhower funds to support teacher networks (43 percent), mentoring (41 percent), and resource centers (32 percent). Twenty-five percent are in projects that use Eisenhower funds for study groups, and 15 percent are in projects that use Eisenhower funds for committees or task forces. Less than 20 percent are in projects that use money from the Eisenhower program to fund either internships or individual research projects.

These reform activities are rarely a SAHE grantee's primary activity. Only nine percent of participating teachers are in projects that support teaching networks as their primary activity, four percent are in projects that support study groups as their primary activity, and two percent are in projects that support mentoring as their primary activity. No SAHE grantees use Eisenhower to support committees or task forces, internships, individual research projects, or teacher resource centers as their primary activity.

EXHIBIT 6.4
Percent of Teachers Participating in SAHE-grantee Projects That Offer "Reform" Activities (n=92)

Among SAHE grantees that are IHEs, we examined whether the choice of supporting a reform versus traditional activity as the primary activity differs by type of institution or departmental affiliation.¹¹ Exhibit 6.5 shows that there are no significant differences by institution type, but education departments and "other" departments are significantly more likely than mathematics/science departments to have a reform activity as their primary activity. The difference may be due to the fact that professors in education and "other" departments are more likely to be social scientists, or curriculum and instruction specialists than are mathematics or science professors. As a result, professors in education or "other" departments may be more knowledgeable about alternative formats for structuring activities, other than traditional courses or workshops.

EXHIBIT 6.5
SAHE-grantees? Support for "Reform" Types of Activities, Overall and by Institution Type and Departmental Affiliation (n=92)

Duration

In addition to subject-area focus and type of activity, the duration of the activity is another important structural feature. Duration includes both contact hours and span across time in days, months, and years. To measure the duration of SAHE-grantee activities, we asked each project director across what period of time the project?s primary activity extended and the total number of hours that it lasted.

Contact Hours

Each SAHE-grantee project director reported the number of contact hours the typical participant engaged in the grantees? primary activity. Responses, shown in Exhibit 6.6a, indicate that the majority of participating teachers (58 percent) are in projects that sponsor activities that last more than 40 hours. Thirty-two percent of teachers are in projects whose primary activity lasts between nine and 40 hours, 10 percent are in projects whose primary activity lasts between four and eight hours, and only one percent are in projects whose primary activity lasts less than four hours.

EXHIBIT 6.6a
Percent of Teachers Participating in SAHE-grantee Projects, by Contact
Hours of Primary Activity (n=92)

We now examine whether the number of contact hours of activities differs significantly by institution type or departmental affiliation. Exhibit 6.6b shows that SAHE-sponsored IHE projects range in contact hours from one to about 130 hours, with an average of 64 contact hours. Exhibit 6.6b also indicates that there are significant interactions between institution type and departmental affiliation. The pattern of interactions, shown in Exhibit 6.6c, indicates that SAHE-grantee projects housed in education departments in research/doctoral-granting universities have more than twice as many contact hours as other projects.

EXHIBIT 6.6b
Contact Hours of SAHE-grantees? Primary Activity, Overall and by Institution
Type and Departmental Affiliation (n=92)

EXHIBIT 6.6c
Contact Hours of SAHE-grantees? Primary Activity, Interaction of Institution Type and Departmental Affiliation (n=86)

To measure the span of SAHE-grantee activities, we asked each project director to describe the time period over which the primary activity was spread, including the main activity and any formal preliminary or follow-up sessions. We asked for this information only for primary activities; thus the information is not available for internships, teacher resource centers, teacher committees/task forces, or individual research projects, which no IHE or NPO provided as a primary activity. Exhibit 6.7a shows that a little more than a quarter (27 percent) of participating teachers are in projects whose primary activity extends over more than one year, but the most common span of activities is between one month and one year; fifty-two percent of participating teachers are in projects whose primary activity spans this period of time. A substantial portion of participating teachers (22 percent) are in projects that sponsor primary activities that span less than one month.

EXHIBIT 6.7a
Percent of Teachers Participating in SAHE-grantee Projects, by Time
Span of Primary Activity (n=92)

Next we examine whether span differs for SAHE-supported IHE projects by institution type or departmental affiliation. The scale represented in Exhibit 6.7b has a range of one to five, where one equals one day and five equals greater than one year. Results in Exhibit 6.7b show that projects housed in mathematics/science departments range in span from one day to one year, and that no projects in education or "other" departments have a span of less than one month. The only significant differences are that IHE projects in education departments sponsor activities that are significantly longer in span (an average of about one month to one year) than IHE projects in mathematics or science departments (an average of three days to one month).

EXHIBIT 6.7b
Span of SAHE-grantees? Primary Activity, Overall and by Institution Type
and Departmental Affiliation (n=92)

In summary, our data indicate that SAHE-grantee activities generally are of long duration: 58 percent of participating teachers are in projects whose primary activity has 40 or more contact hours, and 79 percent are in projects whose primary activity spans more than one month (see Exhibits 6.6a and 6.7a, respectively). Part of the reason IHE/NPO activities have long durations is that many of them are college courses (26 percent of participating teachers are in projects whose primary activity is a college course), which, by design, meet several hours per week and are spread over several months. However, as we showed in Chapter 3, even workshops and reform activities tend to have long durations when provided by IHE/NPOs. This might be because IHEs adopt the paradigm of courses for many of the other types of activities that they provide. Also, the proposal guidelines that SAHEs establish might require activities of long duration. Another possible explanation is that IHEs are knowledgeable about and apply principles of adult education, which suggest that sustained activities are the most useful and effective. This explanation is supported by the fact that IHE projects in education departments have activities of longer duration than projects in mathematics or science departments. We would expect that project directors affiliated with education departments would be more familiar than project directors affiliated with mathematics/science departments with how to optimally design professional development opportunities for teachers; professors in education departments at research universities are the source of most of the current research and theoretical literature on effective professional development.

Collective Participation

The final structural feature of professional development that we discuss is collective participation, or the extent to which activities are geared toward the needs of groups of teachers or whole schools, rather than individual teachers. To measure collective participation in SAHE-grantee professional development activities, we asked each project director which of the following groups participated in the project?s primary activity: 1) all teachers in department or grade-level groupings, and/or 2) all teachers in a school or set of schools (as opposed to teachers as individuals or teachers as representatives of their department, grade level, or school).

Exhibit 6.8a shows that 15 percent of participating teachers are in projects in which all teachers in a department or grade participate in the primary Eisenhower-assisted activity, and 14 percent are in projects in which that participation in the primary activity includes participation from all teachers in a school. These low rates of collective participation may be explained in part by the fact that IHEs commonly provide college courses, and teachers usually enroll in courses individually. In addition, teachers often compete to enroll in IHE activities. Participation by groups of teachers or whole schools in the same activity would be more likely to occur with a noncompetitive application process or a competition focused on whole schools, departments, or grades, rather than pre-designed workshops focused on individuals or courses for which the IHE/NPO seeks applicants.

EXHIBIT 6.8a
Percent of Teachers Participating in SAHE-grantee Projects Whose Primary Activity
Involves Collective Participation (n=92)

We averaged the two variables comprising the "collective participation" measure to analyze differences according to institution type and departmental affiliation. Analysis of this composite, illustrated in Exhibit 6.8b, shows that many SAHE grantees have neither of the two types of collective participation in their primary activity, while a few SAHE grantees have both types. Exhibit 6.8b also shows that there are significant differences in collective participation by institution type and departmental affiliation. Research/doctoral-granting institutions are significantly more likely than other types of IHEs to have collective participation. Differences by departmental affiliation are significant, but post hoc tests show that differences between any two types of departments are not statistically significant.

EXHIBIT 6.8b
Collective Participation in SAHE-grantee Projects, Overall and by Institution Type and Departmental Affiliation (n=92)

One possible explanation for these results is that "other" departments (examples in our survey include broadcasting, a college of business, and a university outreach department) may be more likely than mathematics/science or education departments to develop a particular program or course designed specifically for their Eisenhower project. In mathematics, science, or education, teachers may participate in professional development activities that are part of the regular university curriculum. "Other" departments may be less likely than education or mathematics and science departments to have relevant regular courses or programs that would draw teachers from various sources.

Summary: Structural Features of SAHE-grantee Activities

As with districts, SAHE grantees support predominately mathematics and science activities, but they also support activities in other subject areas. The reports from SAHE-grantee project directors about the structure of their activities mirror the reports from teachers, described in Chapter 3. SAHE grantees generally offer traditional types of activities—courses and workshops—although a few grantees, especially those in education and "other" departments, are trying reform activities. SAHE grantees have low levels of collective participation in their activities, but seem to structure their primary activities to support "sustained and intensive" learning. On average, activities last over 60 hours, and span between one month and a year. This provides a structure that could facilitate the implementation of content knowledge focus and high-quality learning strategies. We now turn to an analysis of the degree to which SAHE-grantee projects focus on those dimensions of quality.

¹¹ The distribution and mean for IHEs and NPOs are presented separately in these analyses, but we did not test for significant differences between IHEs and NPOs because of the small number of NPOs in our sample.

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[Characteristics of IHE/NPO Recipients of Eisenhower Grants]

[Core Features of Professional Development]