"After the professional development training: evidence of the data wise improvement process within teachers’ practices in an elementary urban school"

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Tyrone S. Freeman Jr. (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Carl Lashley

Abstract: Within the profession of education, one essential resource that contributes toward enhancing an educator's growth is professional development. However, once an educator completes the training and returns to his or her assigned building, the question is whether the educator utilizes the information learned from the training. One such professional development training was conducted in 2009 within an urban school district to introduce a selected group of pilot elementary and secondary schools to the Data Wise Improvement Process. The purpose of this case study is to determine, through data collection, whether there is evidence that the Data Wise Improvement Process has been implemented after the professional development. Of the pilot schools that completed the initial training, one of the elementary schools was selected as the school to utilize within this research. The case study school is located within the university area of a large metropolitan city within North Carolina. The school has been one identified by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's ABC's of Public Education Growth and Performance Report as a School of Progress. Additionally the school was also recognized for achieving the ABC status of high growth based on the recent end-of-year state summative assessments. This case study school is also identified as a Professional Development School through its partnership with the local public university. The qualitative research method was utilized for this case study. This research method involved the use of data coding to organize and correlate the data. Data consisted of field notes derived from classroom observations and instructional planning sessions, open-ended interview questions, and instructional documents. Thirty-three certified staff members who participated in this study; from this group, 10 educators participated in the interview process. For this study, data were triangulated through the coding method used. This process enabled the organization and correlation of all data collected for the data. Three themes evolved from the analysis of data: the usage of data, progress monitoring, and teacher collaboration. These themes were associated with the evidence that was collected for determining the existence of the Data Wise Improvement Process within the school setting today.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 2013
Keywords
Data Wise, District Initiatives, Professional Development, Training
Subjects
Teachers $x In-service training $z North Carolina $v Case studies
Follow-up in teacher training $z North Carolina $v Case studies
Teacher effectiveness $z North Carolina $v Case studies

Email this document to