The professional development (PD) program, Tandem Certification for Indiana Teachers (TACIT) (2004-2009), was funded through a National Professional Development Program (NPDP) grant. The program led to certification in teaching English language learners for 75 Indiana ESL teachers (ESLTs) and content-area teachers (CATs). This report details four stages of development undertaken by TACIT researchers to improve their PD effectiveness: (a) a language needs assessment conducted in an Indiana county; (b) research on the online delivery mode; (c) course participation as a basis for collaboration; and (d) a post-program impact analysis of TACIT’s alumni to understand the next steps that it could take to continue to support teachers of English language learners. When TACIT began, there were 336 ESL-certified teachers in the state of Indiana. At the end of the program, TACIT increased that number by 22 percent.

NEEDS ANALYSIS RESEARCH FOR PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT

TACIT’s PD strategy grew out of a 6-month responsive needs assessment (Stake, 2003) of ESL and Spanish language services in an Indiana county. The unique element of the needs assessment was that stakeholders’ own concerns rather than externally derived standards were used as standards for evaluation. Though this was not the main focus of the needs assessment, the researchers observed the following circumstances facing teachers in this community:

1. The absence of instructional support for English language learners in the school system—especially in mainstream and content-based classes
2. An urgent need to increase the number of teachers trained in ESL
3. Lack of recognition on the part of school administrators of the professional benefits of the training for language service providers

The county was experiencing an unprecedented growth in the number of newcomers, which exemplified what was happening across Indiana and the Midwest. Thus, the needs observed in the county were instructive for a proposal to develop a statewide ESL professional development program.

Using this information, to increase the number of teachers trained in English language learner instruction in Indiana, TACIT proposed a program of training for language and content-area teachers that would address English language learner needs across the school curriculum by pairing ESLTs and CATs from the same school system with each other during the program. TACIT also proposed online PD training accompanied by regular face-to-face sessions so that these teachers would have an ability to not only utilize the information immediately in their own settings, but also experience professional development that is situated and grounded in the realities of their context. Finally, instead of short-term and limited PD, TACIT proposed an extended program of 9 months in order to foster long-lasting partnerships between ESLTs and CATs and provide sufficient time for teachers to obtain needed coursework for an ESL endorsement. Using these professional development strategies, TACIT staff developed an NPDP proposal that brought together ESLTs and CATs dispersed across 25 highly impacted Indiana school districts. During TACIT’s operation, research and regular evaluations enabled the program staff to refine the instructional program to better fit the needs of the participants.

RESEARCH TO REFINE ONLINE COLLABORATION

In TACIT’s first year, to refine the online medium of instruction so that the goal of ESLT and CAT collaboration could be better achieved in program activities, TACIT’s research team undertook an investigation on reducing “serial monologues” (Garrison, 2007, p. 66) in discussions in which we saw teachers struggling to collaborate and to integrate new ideas into their online postings. Collaboration is difficult to achieve in any medium. Thus, our research was helpful in that it indicated that particularly in the online medium, our teachers needed an instructional structure that enabled them to engage meaningfully with each other. We uncovered optimal factors to support the teachers’ online collaboration in TACIT courses, including setting up projects so that teachers could work and could see the benefits of being “constructed knowers” (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986, p. 134); training teachers to assume well-defined collaborative discussion roles such as starters, integrators, provocateurs, and synthesizers; and developing teachers’ ability to monitor their own participation, such as through self-labeling and self-coding of postings.

Once collaborative engagement began to stabilize, in our subsequent year, we began to focus on the substantive quality of our teachers’ collaboration, that is, commonalities and differences in their perceptions. We used the commonalities that emerged as collaboration foundations for the ESLTs and CATs to work together while differences served as a means to address bridge-building between the teachers. Among the findings of our research, we found that although both ESLTs and CATs undertook linguistic and conceptual scaffolding extensively, CATs in TACIT lacked knowledge (6.3% out of 98.5% of knowledge described) on how to use scaffolds, artifacts, tools, and informational sources that are culturally and historically familiar to English language learners. We also found that even though both sets of teachers reported advocacy as part of their out-of-class responsibilities, ESLTs primarily focused on pushing back against the tide of unfair policies imposed by administrators, misconceptions, and uninformed practice. The advocacy help that CATs focused primarily on instead was seeking instructional help. Through information obtained through our research, we designed coursework and summer retreats along the lines of these differences and commonalities that were uncovered. We also assisted teachers in developing action research and in-services for their colleagues to address these areas.

PD COLLABORATION IMPACT ANALYSIS

Finally, as each cohort completed TACIT, we began to focus on its outcomes in terms of factors that helped TACIT’s ESLTs and CATs continue collaboration in their schools. We used D’Amour’s (1997) Model of Structuring Inter-professional Collaboration, which provides insights into internal and external factors impacting the collaboration of professionals across disciplines in an organization. By means of the model, we identified the interactional-interpersonal and structural-organizational factors that sustained in-school collaboration (e.g., visible leadership); key tensions that complicated the collaboration (e.g., relegating ESLTs as assistants); and the key activities undertaken when collaboration was successful (e.g., information exchange). The D’Amour model provided a means for us to show that collaboration between ESL and content-area teachers was a complex process involving interpersonal interactions and organizational structures. In addition, it was also able to help us to show that collaboration was a series of choices teachers made based on what and whom the respondents in the study saw as enablers or obstacles to collaboration. D’Amour and Oandasan (2005) indicated that this duality in collaboration makes it particularly challenging to undertake. Collaboration is based on the individual autonomy of professionals but it can conflict with the very organizational structure put into place to support the collaboration. It is simply not enough to put professionals together in one place for them to collaborate (p. 52). To begin with, professionals and the establishments they work in must be invested in the collaboration and in each other.

CONCLUSION

At each step of the way, TACIT’s professional development was carefully researched as a means to improve its effectiveness. The quality and the impact of TACIT have led to two additional grants from the state of Indiana to continue the PD program work upon the completion of the NPDP grant in 2009.

REFERENCES

Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing: The development of self, voice and mind. New York, NY: Basic Books.

D’Amour, D. (1997). Structuration de la collaboration interprofessionnelle dans les services de santé de première ligne au Québec. Thèse de doctorat. Montréal: Université de Montréal.

D’Amour, D., & Oandasan, I. (2005). Interprofessionality as the field of interprofessional practice and interprofessional education: An emerging concept. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 19(S1), 8-20.

Garrison, D. R. (2007). Online community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(1), 61-72.

Pawan, F. (2008). Content area teachers and scaffolded instruction for English Language Learners. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 1450-1462.

Pawan, F., & Groff Thomalla, T. (2005). Making the invisible, visible: A “responsive evaluation” study of ESL/Spanish language services for immigrants in a small rural county in Indiana. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 683-705.

Pawan, F., & Ortloff, J. (2011). Sustaining collaboration: ESL and content area teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 463-471.

Stake, R. (2003). Responsive evaluation. In T. Kellaghan & D. L. Stufflebeam (Eds.), International handbook of educational evaluation (pp. 63-68). Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic.

In the Department of Literacy, Culture and Language Education at Indiana University, Faridah Pawan directs EFL/ESL professional development programs; teaches research courses on the preparation of language teachers; and studies collaboration between language and content-area teachers.