SBP: Collaborative Research: Improving Engagement with Professional Development Programs by Attending to Teachers' Psychosocial Experiences

随着美国学生群体变得更加多样化，教育机会和教育成果方面的长期差距依然存在。纠正这些差距的努力通常使用有重点的专业发展(PD)来支持教育工作者更有效地教授不同类型的学生。PD涵盖了广泛的主题，如响应文化的教学，为学生提供包容性实践，以及让经历过逆境的学生参与的战略。这些不同的PD方法的共同点是有目的和明确地专注于理解具有不同经历和需求的学生所面临的问题，并让教育工作者掌握克服这些挑战和支持学生成功的技能。虽然聚焦PD的需求量很大，但人们对其有效性知之甚少。许多有针对性的PD计划收效甚微，有些可能适得其反。例如，这些项目可能会在教育工作者中制造一种心理威胁感，导致被排斥、被评判或处于不利地位的感觉。这些结果可能会导致阻力和反弹，从而破坏项目目标。为了使重点PD取得成功，它需要关注教育者的经验。这项研究考察了聚焦PD中三种常见的心理威胁来源(身份威胁、文化威胁和教学威胁)如何影响教育者如何在课堂上参与和使用聚焦PD内容，以及这种使用如何改善学生的学业体验和成绩。两项研究使用焦点小组和调查设计，在参加过各种有针对性的PD经历的全国样本教育工作者中检查这些问题。另外三项研究使用随机对照实验来测试减轻教育者身份、文化和教学威胁的策略。总而言之，这项工作为创造有重点的PD环境提供了洞察力，在这种环境中，所有教师都感到受到重视，有能力参与到具有挑战性的想法中，并能够增长他们的课堂技能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As the U.S. student population grows more diverse, longstanding disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes persist. Efforts to remedy these disparities often use focused professional development (PD) to support educators in more effectively teaching diverse students. PD covers a wide array of topics, such as culturally responsive instruction, inclusive practices for students, and strategies for engaging students who have experienced adversity. What unites these diverse PD approaches is an intentional and explicit focus on understanding the issues facing students with diverse experiences and needs, and on equipping educators with skills to overcome these challenges and support student success. While focused PD is in high demand, little is known about its effectiveness. Many focused PD programs have little to no effect, and some may be counterproductive. For example, these programs can create a sense of psychological threat among educators, leading to feelings of being excluded, judged, or disadvantaged. These outcomes can result in resistance and backlash that undermine program goals.For focused PD to be successful, it needs to attend to educators' experiences. This project conducts studies that examine how three common sources of psychological threat in focused PDs (identity, culture, and pedagogy threats) shape how educators engage with and use focused PD content in their classrooms, and how this use improves students’ academic experiences and performance. Two studies use focus groups and survey designs to examine these issues among a national sample of educators who have participated in a wide variety of focused PD experiences. Three additional studies use randomized controlled experiments to test strategies for mitigating identity, culture, and pedagogy threats among educators. Together, this work provides insight for creating focused PD environments where all teachers feel valued, equipped to engage with challenging ideas, and capable of growing their classroom skills.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.