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“How can we make professional development for teachers more efficient and effective?” That’s the question that Christopher Dede, Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies, posed to colleagues and peers when organizing the Usable Knowledge: Linking Research to Practice conference, “Evolving a Research Agenda for Online Teacher Professional Development.” The two-day invitation-only conference was held on September 8 and 9 and attracted more than 70 scholars, policymakers, and education philanthropists to the Ed School.
The conference series, funded by a gift from Al and Kate Merck, was designed to examine how to best link education research to practice so that it becomes “usable knowledge”—tools, materials, and curricula that are further tested and studied in classrooms and school systems. This is the third usable knowledge conference held at the school. It follows “Scaling Up Success” conference in March 2003, and the “Mind, Brain, and Education” conference that was held in October 2004. Dede served as faculty lead for the conference, which included active involvement from more than 20 doctoral students and faculty members. The National Science Foundation’s Division of Elementary, Secondary and Informal Education (NSF) co-sponsored the session and commissioned what will be one tangible outcome of the conference: a research agenda based on the discussions of conference presenters and attendees. Conference organizers felt the topic of Online Teacher Professional Development (oTPD) was “ripe” for a variety of reasons. First, it’s well documented that K–12 teachers have very little time and limited resources for necessary professional development. Second, advances in distance learning have created exciting opportunities for online professional development. And finally, relatively little is known about best practices for the design and implementation of online initiatives, which provides an opportunity for research and policy discussion about the topic. A glance at the current landscape demonstrates why teachers, program designers, school systems, and policymakers are overwhelmed with the idea of oTPD. Many initiatives are serving large numbers of educators while consuming substantial resources. Further, the medium in which the programs are offered vary greatly—some are completely online or face-to-face, while others are a hybrid of virtual and face-to-face learning. And, there is little known about how to measure the educational effectiveness of an oTPD program. “We thought that, if we could use the conference to look at research findings that contrast current outcomes from exemplary projects, build collective insights from these results, and propose key themes and related methodologies for studying the evolution of effective oTPD models, we might make oTPD initiatives less daunting and more effective,” says Dede.
All aspects of the sessions were built to integrate feedback from presenters and participants into the proposed research agenda. Prior to the conference, the 10 presenters, each of whom had conducted significant research on an exemplary oTPD model with a substantial record of success, prepared papers about their work that all attendees read in advance. At the start of each session, the lead presenter gave a brief summary of his or her paper, and an educator or evaluator involved in that project co-presented a précis of field-based perspectives from its implementation. The majority of the session then consisted of discussing the oTPD model’s strengths and weaknesses. In subsequent sessions, participants identified similarities and differences among these models and their underlying theories, as well as on delineating the implications of this comparative analysis for educational practice and policy. “We were able to host a forum for discussing what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong, and how a wide variety of scholars and opinion leaders believe how we should move forward collaboratively,” says Dede. The two-day conference was just the beginning. Dede is busy working with a group of doctoral students, reviewing the conference notes and discussions from all participants to develop a way of presenting the collective recommendations on a research agenda. He will then obtain feedback from the key presenters and submit the proposed research agenda to the NSF. HGSE is hosting a post-conference Web site with a wealth of information for those interested in oTPD. In addition, conference organizers will present research findings at a variety of major national professional conferences in teacher professional development, educational technology, and distance education.
And, in late spring 2006, Harvard Education Press will publish a conference volume containing the commissioned papers, a comparative analysis of the exemplary oTPD projects presented and their underlying models, and a synthesis of insights from conference discussions. The conference volume is designed for a wide audience: faculty members, practitioners, and policymakers seeking insights about teacher professional development and distance education; vendors seeking to understand how to develop a substantial market share in online education; and researchers and evaluators seeking sophisticated models and methods for studying online learning. “The research agenda, Web site and conference volume are exciting steps toward creating valuable resources to keep the discourse on a very important topic,” notes Dede. For More Information
HGSE News, Harvard Graduate School of Education
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