Professional Development

The research article that is selected for this synopsis is on professional development. This is a very interested research project because it takes a look at the teachers themselves instead of the students. Almost always, the students are blamed for not spending enough time on their studies or on their schoolwork. This study takes a look at the how knowledgeable the teacher is and if that effects how the students learn. A student can only learn as much as the teacher wants them to. If a teacher is very enthusiastic and excited and very knowledgeable, students will usually come away from that class understanding everything much easier. If the teacher is very unenthusiastic, the students will not learn very much at all.

This research was published in the Journal of Research in Professional Learning. The journal focuses mainly on how teachers, students, and people learn. The purpose of this research is to determine the impact of professional development. The article wants to go into detail about how professional development is arranged and recognized. The research wants to understand the definition of what constitutes effective professional development. The actual research went and surveyed teachers to find out if the teachers had an influence on the students with professional development. If the teachers could affect the students by being taught themselves, than the teacher would be the ones to be taught. The research was trying to understand if by teaching the teacher the importance of professional development, it would in turn lead to more education to the students about professional development.

The business problem under investigation is the education of professional development. They are evaluating teachers in different school districts and learning centers to see how many actually teach professional development. The research of the project goes into detail about how a specifically designed and supported professional development program is a must for any educational improvement. They are looking for a program that focuses on teacher’s beliefs and attitudes in hopes that they will change their way of teaching and improve the leadership of their classroom. The reason this belief is said is because it is stated that the teachers are able to teach more when they understand the topic more. The overall meaning behind the research is to understand whether or not by affecting a teacher you can affect the students.

Christine Lowden from Seton Hall University conducted the research. She sent out 650 flyers to certified teachers in two public suburban school districts in New York State and only 205 returned the survey. She was hoping to have more of a response, but the limited response was added and noted into her research as teachers that do not even want to participate their time for educational purposes. She was using Guskey’s Model of Teacher Change throughout the entire research project.

A voluntary development survey for teachers was used