Fostering High-Quality Teaching With an Enriched Curriculum and Professional Development Support:The Head Start REDI Program

Abstract

This randomized controlled trial tested whether teaching quality in Head Start classrooms could be improved with the addition of evidence-based curriculum components targeting emergent language/literacy and social-emotional development and the provision of associated professional development support. Participants were lead and assistant teachers in 44 Head Start classrooms. Teachers received 4 days of workshop training along with weekly in-class support from a mentor teacher. End-of-year observations indicated that, compared to the control group, intervention teachers talked with children more frequently and in more cognitively complex ways, established a more positive classroom climate, and used more preventive behavior management strategies. Results supported the conclusion that enriched curriculum components and professional development support can produce improvements in multiple domains of teaching quality.

Genuine Involvement In Continuous Professional Development: How To See It?

“…Despite the findings of previous studies about the positive impact of professional development on students achievement and teacher practice quality [15], [16], [17] not all teachers participate in professional development activities. Lie's study [18] reveals that many Indonesian English teachers are not able to join in professional development program due to the overload work at school, low salary, other side jobs and low motivation to enhance professional development.…”

Leadership for professional development and learning: enhancing our understanding of how teachers develop

“…The impact of teachers' professional development on pupil learning and achievement (Bredeson et al, 2012;Desimone, 2009), through its impact on teachers' practice (Domitrovich et al, 2009;Firestone et al, 2005;Garet et al, 2001;Kuijpers et al, 2010;Neuman & Cunningham, 2009;Penuel et al, 2007), has also been examined. In this respect, professional learning and development have often been considered and examined in relation to school effectiveness and improvement; indeed, this generative feature of professional development is a pervasive focus of most American research and scholarship, to the extent that it is explicitly or implicitly incorporated into conceptualisations and definitions of professional development.…”

“…More recently, empirical research findings have served to heighten the potential efficacy of coaching and mentoring as professional development tools (Domitrovich et al, 2009;Neuman and Cunningham, 2009;Stanulis et al, 2012;Zwart et al, 2007).…”

Teacher Quality and Learning Outcomes in Kindergarten *

“…We note that these values are lower than those found in studies with US data. For example, 32 percent of teachers in Domitrovich et al (2008) attrited from the sample between one year and the next; in 22 percent of teachers left the sample between random assignment and the end of the first year of the study, and a further 23 percent attrited between the first and second years.…”