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What's The Research On...?

Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development

WCER research has found that students learn most effectively when teaching engages them in intellectually challenging tasks that require construction of knowledge and disciplined inquiry, and that have value beyond school. When teachers assign more intellectually challenging tasks, students produce work of higher intellectual quality. This kind of authentic pedagogy contributes to equal opportunity for all students to learn, reducing inequities between groups that have traditionally been more and less advantaged. WCER research has found that instruction and assessment, the major elements of the education system, must be aligned across criteria and across grade levels.

Student achievement is more likely to improve when professional development addresses not only the learning of individual teachers, but also three dimensions of the school's organizational capacity: teacher knowledge, teachers’ professional community, and program coherence. Professional development often presents information that teachers see as irrelevant to student learning in their specific school settings. Professional development should work hand in hand with teacher evaluation and assessment. Teacher assessments should do a better job of identifying the strengths of teachers of color, strengths that can be translated into real classroom practices that meet the needs of urban students of color. Teacher evaluation also should do a better job of advancing learning for senior teachers. And, finally, teachers who conduct research into their own practice through action research gain a new sense of confidence and begin to see themselves as learners.