AIER’s Teach-the-Teachers Initiative: Sustained Learning
I have been reflecting on the legacy of AIER’s founder, Col. E.C. Harwood, who encouraged “the educational aspects of the Institute’s work to be specifically aimed at teachers.” In my previous blog I started to assess how AIER’s Teach-the-Teachers Initiative (TTI) fulfills the criteria of high-quality professional development. As I promised, I would like to explore each criterion analyzed in the recent report, “Bridging the Gap: Paving the Pathway from Current Practice to Exemplary Professional Learning,” published by the Frontline Research and Learning Institute, and assess how our program satisfies them.
The first criterion used in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which was signed into law in 2015, is sustainability. Part 2 of the Bridging the Gap report clarifies this as “sustained professional development takes place over an extended period and is longer that a one-day or one-time workshop.” So how does our TTI workshop stack up against this definition?
From its initiation, AIER’s program has complied with the sustainability requirement. The program is a 39-hour endeavor, which blends an online component (13 hours) prior to the workshop with a three-day face-to-face component (26 hours). Our Economics-Across-the-Curriculum approach encourages teachers from various disciplines to participate in the workshop. We use the online pre-work to foster a deeper understanding of economic concepts, “leveling the playing field” for all teachers.
Another study, published in 2007, confirms that professional development for teachers of 14 hours or less has absolutely no effect on student learning outcomes. In addition to being longer, our blended approach allows teachers additional time to absorb the material from the online portion before the actual workshop, since we open the online component two weeks in advance.
Additionally, AIER’s TTI program combines two modes of professional learning, meeting the sustainability criterion on a deeper level. The modes of professional learning, which are explained in detail in the Bridging the Gap report, are Expert to Group, Expert to Individual, and Peer to Peer. In our case, during the face-to-face portion of the workshop, the economic content is delivered to teachers by experts in economics and economic education. This is the Expert to Group mode.
A special feature of TTI is coaching teachers to create an idea for teaching an economic concept in their curriculum (based on the demonstrated lessons) that they can implement in their classes. The coaching happens during the workshop and culminates on the final day when participants present their ideas in front of their peers and a panel of mentors. Feedback is given by both the mentors and their peers to crystalize and refine their ideas. This is the Expert to Individual mode. AIER emphasizes this mode of learning further. If a teacher opts to implement their lesson idea in their classroom, we continue to mentor them as they develop pre- and post- assessment tools, engage in a reflective de-briefing. In some cases, we observe the lesson implementation.
That teachers value this sustained approach to their professional development is evidenced by self-reflective essays they submit after all the stages of the program have been completed. Some of the testimonials are available here.
I think that it is fair to say that AIER’s Teach-the-Teachers program satisfies the sustainability criterion.
Picture: Participants at AIER’s Teach-the-Teachers workshop in Boston in June 2016. Photo by Leah LaRiccia.
