Abstract
Existing literature emphasizes the importance of focusing professional learning on those already in the teaching core (Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017; Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995). This is partly because practicing teachers understand the importance of the context in which they are teaching and the opportunities and challenges their students face. New teachers have not experienced these contexts with any longevity, and are more likely to have had brief clinical experiences throughout their teacher preparation program that allow them opportunities to bridge theory and practice. Nonetheless, we have a responsibility to support in meaningful and responsive ways the large numbers of classroom educators who have committed themselves to teaching K-12 learners. There is no shortage of research concluding that teacher professional learning is critical for supporting the cultivation of the myriad skills that students need for life success. This is particularly true considering the competencies youth need to be prepared for the 21st-century workforce and meaningful engagement in a democracy (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017). Yet, we also know that professional development (PD) is crucial to ensuring that teachers are able to learn and refine the pedagogies and practices needed to meet the academic and social needs of a culturally diverse student population (Prenger, Poortman, & Handelzalts, 2017).
Teacher PD efforts generally share the goal of positively shifting teachers’ behavior, knowledge, and attitudes, with the ultimate goal of improving student achievement (Desimone, 2009). Although this is important for educators who work in communities that are high-need and/or serve students from minoritized racial/ethnic and linguistically diverse groups, it is also critical that all practicing educators have opportunities to participate in professional learning communities (PLCs) that center collaboration and pedagogical innovation related to shared goals that are student-centered (Cochran-Smith, 2015). We highlight the issue of meaningful support for practicing teachers in this editorial as an opportunity to encourage readers to consider effective PD as professional learning designed with equity goals in mind for students and teachers. We assert the need for an expanded view of what is meant by “effective PD” as inclusive of equity as not only essential for student learners but also for teacher learners. Educators need access to the kinds of learning experiences that will help them grow as professionals.
Professional learning opportunities designed to meet the needs of inservice teachers should also carefully account for context and teacher identity, particularly in this climate of increased accountability and decreased enrollment in teacher preparation programs nationwide (Sawchuk, 2015). We believe that context matters for PD design and implementation, and contextual features interact with a teachers’ professional agency and contribute to classroom practices (Richmond, 2015; Wray & Richmond, 2018). Teacher identity also matters, and practicing educators need to be willing to continually and critically reflect on the ways in which their personal and professional identities inform their (in)ability to effectively meet the needs of a diverse student population (Larrivee, 2000). Issues of equity for students and teachers are connected; the more teachers know about their students’ needs and possibilities for growth, the more responsive they can be to these needs and possibilities and to providing powerful learning opportunities. Many of the papers in this issue directly or indirectly highlight factors that need to be considered when PD opportunities are provided for preservice and practicing educators. Furthermore, the findings from several of these papers have implications for considering the unique roles that social/cultural contexts and teacher identity play in the design and implementation of learning opportunities. These opportunities must be designed to increase student learning outcomes and foster humanizing educational environments for professional learning while drawing upon the assets that students bring to the classroom and respond to the challenges they might face (Bartolomé, 1994; Brown, 2013; Carter Andrews, Brown, Castillo, Jackson-Meadows, & Vellanki, 2019; Carter Andrews & Castillo, 2016). Teachers, whose professional identity includes an asset-based pedagogical orientation toward learning, draw on the cultural strengths and native learning modalities of students. When teachers are able to build their collective efficacy around shared goals related to sustaining students’ cultural assets and building on students’ strengths, these shared beliefs can significantly positively influence student learning. With these shared goals, PLCs can set challenging goals that represent investments in enhanced teacher practice and humanizing learning experiences for students. Taken together, high-functioning PLCs and teacher collective efficacy can contribute to improved student achievement (Voelkel & Chrispeels, 2017).
PLCs have been shown to be effective vehicles for supporting deeper teacher learning (Tam, 2015), teacher collective efficacy (Gray, Kruse, & Tarter, 2017), and greater student learning outcomes (Voelkel & Chrispeels, 2017). Existing research indicates there are several essential characteristics of PLCs that are effective for teacher learning: a shared goal and focus on a concrete outcome; collective focus on student learning; reflective dialogue; collaboration and active participation; structured and guided activities having a relation to practice; trust; leadership; stakeholder support; and individual prior knowledge and motivation (Cochran-Smith, 2015; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001; Lomos, Hofman, & Bosker, 2011; van Veen, Zwart, & Meirink, 2012). The most effective PLCs are those in which the work is responsive to and incorporates elements of context and the identity of the practitioner participants (Pennington & Richards, 2016; Richmond & Manokore, 2011). Furthermore, when teacher communities are designed with equity in mind, they focus on questions that emerge from practice and genuine concerns about how to foster learning and life opportunities for youth who have been historically and traditionally marginalized by schools and viewed from deficit perspectives (Cochran-Smith, 2015). PLCs with an equity focus allow teachers’ own questioning and theorizing to guide the work of improving student experiences and learning outcomes. When PD providers design and implement in this way, teachers are engaged in continual and sustained critical self-reflection related to how their social positionalities inform their relationships with students and pedagogical practices in the classroom (Carter Andrews & Castillo, 2016). An equity focus in PLCs should enhance teacher collective efficacy while remaining student-centered.
As readers engage the collection of papers in this issue, we encourage enlarging one’s view of what constitutes powerful professional learning and for whom. When a definition of educational equity includes “for teachers and students,” PD providers are better able to design and implement experiences where teachers develop the self-efficacy to embody and demonstrate pedagogies and practices that are informed by social/cultural context and professional identities oriented toward all students having access to the learning opportunities they need to maximize academic and life success.