BUILDING TEACHER CAPACITY IN A RURAL HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH DIFFERENTIATED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Every student deserves to be educated by a highly qualified teacher. Since teachers have the greatest impact on student success (Sheninger & Murray, 2017), it is critical to ensure teachers are afforded opportunities to build their capacity through professional development. When teachers perceive that professional development sessions offered by the school district neither support their individual growth needs nor increase their content knowledge, then that perception fuels their sense that precious time and valuable resources are being wasted. The purpose of my action research study was to explore how providing high school teachers with differentiated professional development through incorporating teacher autonomy and teacher leadership in the design and delivery impacted classroom instruction. The participants in my study were teachers who worked in a rural high school in North Carolina with at least three years of experience in teaching. I adopted an action research approach for my study consisting of a set of plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles to address the problem of practice. The teachers were provided several viable options for professional development from which to select. After they attended the sessions, I collected data by using exit tickets, interviews, classroom observations, and surveys. The results were used to inform my determination of what impact teacher autonomy to select professional development had on teachers' implementation of the new learning.

Department dc:contributor.department

Educational Leadership

Grantor dc:publisher

East Carolina University

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Allen, Janita

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Reardon, R. Martin

• Professional Development
• Teacher Autonomy
• Teacher Coaching
• Teacher Leadership

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10342/9095

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:thescholarship.ecu.edu:10342/9095