Suggestions Based on Lessons Learned
1. Leadership:
- For us, in the rural setting of the Midwest, it has been more effective to focus on leadership development projects rather than on full-scale LSC projects.
- Working on leadership development with a relatively few teachers allows us to focus on the teachers who are open to curriculum reform, rather than struggling with those who are strongly resistant.
2. Curriculum-Based Professional Development:
- We have found that professional development built around comprehensive and innovative curriculum materials is very effective, not just for implementing those materials, but also for achieving more general professional development and leadership development goals.
- The power of professional development based on well-designed, innovative curriculum materials has been documented in several recent studies. For example, Summerlin (1996) states that, "Professional development effects of the materials themselves appeared to be significant". In a recent study of professional development in California (Cohen, 1997), it was shown that professional development focusing on new curricula and the content that undergirds it has a positive impact on student achievement. Ball and Cohen (1996) also discuss the role of curriculum materials in teacher learning and instructional reform. They state that, "Teachers could be engaged with curriculum materials in ways that generated learning if the materials were integrated into a program of professional development aimed at improving their capacity to teach. In that case, well-designed materials could be a resource for teachers learning" (p. 8).
- Reflective teaching of an innovative curriculum is a powerful professional development activity. Summer workshops and other academic year activities need to be complemented by coordinated, reflective teaching in the classroom. As teachers teach a comprehensive reform curriculum and see how their own students struggle and learn, they gain valuable insights and grow professionally in ways that no summer workshop or follow-up meeting can foster.
3. Working from the Inside Out:
- In our projects we have worked with a few teachers in many districts, rather than all teachers in a few districts. In this way, the few teachers have been able to work "from the inside out" to grow the curriculum reform from a few classrooms to many classrooms.
- Another aspect of this "working from the inside out" strategy involves the reflective teaching of the curriculum every day in the teachers classrooms. In this way, the reform can grow through daily classroom teaching practices to become a school or district curriculum.
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