The effectiveness of the STeLLA VbPD program has been demonstrated through careful research—effective not only for teacher learning and practice but more importantly for student learning. But video-based analysis of practice is intense, requiring significant human and other resources to support its success. It is definitely not a quick fix. STeLLA-I and STeLLA-II VbPD programs were designed to be workable and sustainable as long as there was significant project funding from the National Science Foundation. The video focus, the need for transcripts to support evidence-based video analysis, the need for science hands-on materials to support the teaching of the STeLLA lessons, and the facilitated, small study group face-to-face structure of this PD approach pose challenges for scalability and sustainability. The RESPeCT project is addressing the challenge of scaling and sustaining this VbPD approach by (a) developing a cadre of teacher leaders at both the district level (teacher specialists) and school levels (classroom teachers), (b) developing university science and mathematics faculty who can support this work beyond the life of the grant in PUSD or in new school districts, and (c) implementing changes within the district and university systems that will enable teachers and professors to participate effectively in this program.
In this section, we describe more specifically what we are doing in the RESPeCT project to support the scaling and sustainability of this VbPD program. Three design principles guide this work: principle 17 pertains to the development of new VbPD leaders while principles 18 and 19 focus on development and sustainability of systems in which VbPD PD leaders can effectively work.
Design principle 17: PD leader development
The development of STeLLA VbPD leaders who have the knowledge and abilities described in Fig. 4 is critical to enabling more teachers and students to have access to this powerful program. To address this need, a leadership development program was designed, developed, and enacted in the RESPeCT project. The leadership development program attends to the full scope of the STeLLA knowledge and decision-making model (Fig. 4).
The content of the leadership program and the process of developing VbPD leaders changes based on the needs of the audience. We have worked with a variety of audiences, including (but not limited to):
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Experienced science education PD leaders who are unfamiliar with the STeLLA PD program
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RESPeCT project elementary teachers who have experienced the STeLLA program as learners but have limited knowledge and experience in leading adult learning
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District level PD specialists who have experienced the STeLLA program as learners
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University science and mathematics faculty unfamiliar with the STeLLA approach and with varying levels of experience in working with teachers.
When the audience is experienced science PD leaders with little experience with the STeLLA VbPD program, the balance of leadership development tips toward the content of the STeLLA VbPD curriculum (lower left hand corner in Fig. 4). However, when the audience has experienced the STeLLA VbPD program and implemented the STeLLA classroom curriculum, the balance of leadership development tips toward developing understandings about and abilities to lead adult learning (lower right hand corner in Fig. 4). For science and mathematics professors unfamiliar with either the STeLLA approach or working with teachers, leadership development focuses on the bottom two corners of the triangle in Fig. 4, developing their understanding of the STeLLA VbPD program goals and components and their knowledge about teacher learning in learning communities.
Regardless of audience, one element of VbPD leadership development remains constant—a focus on making decisions and taking actions consistent with the STeLLA approach. Effective PD leaders know the purpose for each component of the program. They understand what they are doing as PD leaders and why they are doing it. Major goals and activities in the leadership program are described in the following paragraphs.
Taking on a leadership identity
To help classroom teachers who have not previously led PD see themselves as leaders, we are explicit about how the leadership development program helps prepare them to lead the learning of their teacher colleagues. For each PD experience, we point to a model similar to the figure presented in the introduction to this special issue (Tekkumru-Kisa and Stein 2017, Fig. 5). This model helps RESPeCT teacher participants see where they fit in terms of their experiences as a learner in the STeLLA program (teacher as learner, inner layer), their experiences in the RESPeCT leadership development program (facilitator as learner, outer layer), and their eventual role as PD facilitators (middle layer).
STeLLA strategies become PD leader strategies
The leadership development program supports PD leaders in learning to use the STeLLA lenses and strategies in the PD setting. Most of the STeLLA strategies are just as useful in the VbPD context as they are in supporting elementary students’ science learning. PD leaders are supported in learning how to use the STeLLA strategies through three types of analysis experiences: (1) analysis of their own experiences observing PD leaders in the leadership development program, (2) video analysis of other PD leaders working with study groups, and (3) video analysis of their own PD leadership practice after they begin to lead groups of teachers in this VbPD.
The balance between supporting and challenging teachers
PD leaders need to find the right balance between “supporting” and “challenging” teachers. By supporting, we mean using PD leader moves that encourage teachers by signaling that their ideas are valued and that they are making progress toward program goals. By challenging, we mean PD leader moves that press teachers to reconsider, revise, or better support their ideas. This often comes with some level of discomfort. PD leaders learn to make decisions about when and how to support or challenge teachers by analyzing video of other PD leaders and later by analyzing video of their own leadership practice, focusing on PD leader moves that support and/or challenge teachers. In working toward this balance, PD leaders learn to be intentional when they pose questions that elicit or probe teachers’ ideas, when they ask questions that challenge teacher thinking, or when they use any of the other STeLLA strategies in the context of teaching professionals.
Communities of learners
The leadership development program explicitly addresses how to develop communities of learners. For example, PD leaders consider their own experiences in light of readings about characteristics of professional learning communities (PLCs) (Garmston and Wellman 2009; Hall and Hord 2015; Loucks-Horsley, Stiles, Mundry, Love, and Hewson 2010) and identify aspects of the STeLLA VbPD program that contribute to the development of such communities. Use of the STeLLA study group norms and the Lesson Analysis Protocol for video analysis help to develop shared values and behaviors that provide a safe environment for developing relational trust. Participants come to understand how STeLLA video analysis promotes reflective dialogue and deprivatized practice. Taking a step back, they come to understand how the coherence of the STeLLA lessons, content deepening, and lesson analysis planning work contribute to a collaboration focused on student learning.
Understanding change
For audiences with little experience in leading PD, such as RESPeCT teacher leaders or many science professors, the leadership development program includes a focus on leading adult learning. Specific attention is paid to understanding change and what it means to lead change, anticipating and mediating sources of resistance, and managing their own responses during conflict (Hall and Hord 2015). For new teacher leaders in the RESPeCT program, this is particularly important as they anticipate work with their grade-level teacher peers.
Selecting video and planning coherent PD study group sessions
Participants in the leadership development program examine models of video clips and rationales for their selection. PD leaders learn to select clips which represent a progression in the use of STeLLA strategies and a storyline of the science content. For example, the first clip in a study group session might focus on an early lesson in the sequence that reveals common student ideas about steam through the use of elicit and probe questions (STeLLA teaching strategies 1 and 2). The second clip may show a later lesson where students negotiate this idea through an activity matched to the learning goal (STeLLA teaching strategy C) in which students analyze and interpret data from their observations of a tea kettle (STeLLA teaching strategy 4). A third video clip may come from later yet in the lesson sequence and show students attempting to use and apply science ideas (STeLLA teaching strategy 6) about evaporation and condensation as they compare/contrast cloud formation and steam from a tea kettle.
Deepening PD leaders’ science content knowledge
To effectively facilitate science content deepening, PD leaders must achieve a level of confidence with the content that enables them to identify gaps in participants’ content knowledge and to decide “in-the-moment” how to address them. In the leadership program, content deepening is embedded in two contexts. First, as in the STeLLA program itself, content deepening in the leadership program is addressed by engaging participants (teacher leaders as learners) in video analysis. For example, teacher leaders watch a science lesson clip followed by a study group clip in which teachers are discussing the lesson clip. In the clips, both student and teacher misunderstandings of science content are revealed. This provides an opportunity for teacher leaders in the leadership program to clarify their own content understandings as they also think about how to lead sessions where such misunderstandings arise. Content deepening also occurs as teacher leaders are supported by science and mathematics faculty in practicing their implementation of content deepening segments of the VbPD program.
Deepening pedagogical content knowledge
Video analysis is also used to deepen leaders’ pedagogical content knowledge regarding the use of STeLLA lenses and strategies. As participants in the leadership program examine video of study groups, they analyze PD leader knowledge, moves, and decision-making. In this context, opportunities also arise to clarify teacher leaders’ understanding of common student ideas and effective use of the STeLLA strategies related to the target science content learning goals.
Practice leading STeLLA PD
The leadership development program engages PD leaders in practice facilitation of both lesson analysis experiences and content deepening activities. To create safe learning contexts, the practice facilitation involves participants in leading content deepening experiences within their own study group and in leading analysis of video to RESPeCT teacher leaders from other grade level study groups. These practice opportunities are scaffolded to include planning, doing, and reflecting stages. PD leader guides support the practice facilitation, providing details about how to implement each summer institute and school year study group session. These guides are linked to associated PowerPoints, handouts, and video clips.
With the development of new PD leaders across the STeLLA-II and RESPeCT implementations, the STeLLA VbPD program has expanded its reach by developing 50 new PD leaders who in turn have worked with 200 teachers and their 7019 students. Through this multi-stage process, we learned that you cannot shortchange any component of the STeLLA model of PD leader knowledge and decision-making. An effective STeLLA PD leader understands the science content, the many facets of the STeLLA PD and classroom curricula, how teachers learn and change their practice in a community of learners, and how to use this knowledge to lead productive video analysis.
Design principle 18: partnership development and design principle 19: scalability and sustainability
While the STeLLA VbPD approach has demonstrated strong results in terms of teacher and student learning, it is an ambitious program that faces challenges in expanding the reach of the program. One challenge is the development of new, grade-level specific PD leaders who have the knowledge and abilities described in the previous section. Other requirements that might be impediments to long-term sustainability are the need for funding and other benefits to motivate teacher PD leaders in continuing to offer the VbPD to peer teachers; funding and other rewards to encourage teachers to participate in the VbPD; support and strategies for filming classrooms and making, transcribing, and disseminating video clips on a tight timeline; time for teacher PD leaders to review lesson videos and plan study group sessions; funding for and distribution of PD and science lesson plan materials; stable student science learning goals at each grade level so that the videocases remain relevant; stable grade-level teaching assignments so that teachers are teaching the content addressed in the VbPD program; supports to motivate and sustain university faculty commitment to providing ongoing science content advice to teacher PD leaders beyond the life of the grant; refilling the pipeline of teacher leaders and university support faculty; and strong district and university leaders who can lead successful responses to changes in staffing, curriculum, and institutional priorities that impact the VbPD program.
To preserve fidelity to the STeLLA design features and sustain the VbPD program, we must do more than prepare new teacher PD leaders. Educational systems must also be readied. In the RESPeCT project, the systems involved in sustaining the work are the Pomona Unified School District and the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona.
Together, but not individually, CPP and PUSD have the needed expertise identified in design principle 18: science education experts and researchers, scientists and mathematicians, teachers, and school personnel at multiple levels. This combined expertise is necessary to modify the VbPD program in ways that preserve the STeLLA design features while incorporating features that will contribute to the program’s scalability and sustainability. Thus, neither organization can scale and sustain the program independently of each other. However, the components of readiness required by both partner systems include (a) a shared priority for improving student science learning, (b) shared values and commitments to VbPD; (c) ongoing communication and shared decision making to support, sustain, and study the collaboration; (d) investments in building capacity for VbPD; and (e) inclusion of multiple stakeholders in shaping and implementing the program.
Developing systems readiness
Both CPP and PUSD partners have worked on developing these components of system readiness, as described in the following paragraphs.
Priority for improving student science learning
In response to national and local testing and funding policies, many districts and schools have raised instructional time requirements for elementary English language arts and mathematics which have had the effect of largely squeezing science out of the curriculum (Dorph et al. 2011). This is not the policy of the PUSD central offices, who are particularly interested in improving elementary science teaching in light of the impending curriculum shift to match the NGSS and the testing of science at the fifth grade level in California. However, in practice, many PUSD elementary teachers put a low priority on science teaching. During the writing of the RESPeCT grant proposal, the PUSD and CPP partners agreed on the importance of making science learning a higher priority in the district. Project leaders agreed upon ways to modify the STeLLA program to provide more incentive for teachers to prioritize science teaching. One modification was to integrate key Common Core English language arts and mathematics standards into the science lessons that are the focus of the videocases in the VbPD program. In this way, teachers can see science instructional time as also time for developing important literacy and math competencies.
Shared values and commitments to VbPD
In addition to the shared commitment to improving science learning in the district, the project partners from the beginning held a shared vision about and a commitment to the goals and design of VbPD work. This shared vision was developed through four main joint activities: previous partnership work in PUSD middle schools that included some video analysis work using the STeLLA conceptual framework, study of the published research about the STeLLA program, collaborative writing of the RESPeCT proposal, and the enactment of the VbPD program over the past 3 years. This shared commitment to VbPD helped build a mutual respect for the different types of knowledge, expertise, and credibility that the university and the district bring to the work; a commitment to acknowledge and balance each institution’s priorities and constraints to ensure the partnership is mutually beneficial; and active support of the program and flexibility about what can be achieved together.
In terms of flexibility, both partners are committed to exploring better ways to do the work and to find creative solutions to obstacles, no matter how big or small. Both organizations deal with changes that are difficult for the partners and partnerships. For example, PUSD principals and central administrators made a commitment to keep RESPeCT teacher leaders at the same grade level at least for the life of the 5-year grant. When circumstances arose that made this commitment difficult to keep, administrators consulted with CPP researchers to find a compromise that would satisfy project needs.
Communication and shared decision-making
Strong partnerships are maintained by communication which occurs often, is clear, and uses formative data to make mid-course adjustments. Regular meetings with the various stakeholders are important for clarifying roles and responsibilities of each institution. In the RESPeCT program, groups that meet regularly include the Principal Investigator Leadership team (which includes CPP faculty and the PUSD deputy superintendent), the evaluation team, the research team, the university science and math faculty team, the supporting partner team at BSCS, the treatment schools principal team, the district support staff team, the university support staff team, and the university student support team. To assure these groups are working in concert with each other, there are regular cross-team meetings such as monthly PI/evaluation team meetings. Meeting time provides space for updates and problem solving, while also creating space for the various partners to contribute to decisions and to co-construct the ongoing collaborative work.
While we have strong norms for communication and shared decision-making, the process of developing these has not been perfect, in part because of different cultures around decision-making and authority. For example, university faculty are accustomed to having a great deal of freedom in making their own decisions about their professional activities and outside-of-class schedules. For some, the RESPeCT research project involves more people and more collaboration than their science research projects and provides them with less authority to make decisions about their roles and timelines for project work. It took careful two-way communications, mentoring, reasonable modifications of expectations and timelines, and writing templates and leadership guides to keep faculty involved and supportive of project goals and activities.
Investments in capacity building
To sustain the PD leaders and the partnership, thoughtful investments in capacity are critical. Collaborative work requires human capital, funding, and time. The RESPeCT partners work together to ensure that funds support the recruitment of and dedicated time for staff, faculty, and PD leaders with the expertise needed to implement the VbPD program; the recruitment of and support for teachers and district teacher specialists to participate in the PD; and the classroom materials, technology, and physical space needed to support the PD program and the teaching of the science lessons. An additional element of human capital we cannot overemphasize is the importance of having a strong support staff who can make sure that all parts of the program are coordinated, communicated, and scheduled appropriately. In addition to the usual roles played by support staff, the following needs of a video-based program that is also part of a research study are addressed: scheduling the videotaping of science lessons; training student videographers; videotaping science lessons and study group sessions; making video clips; producing transcripts of video clips; disseminating videos and video clips; and organizing systems for filing and sharing videos, video clips, and supporting materials.
From the beginning of the RESPeCT project, the leadership team engaged in strategic planning and capacity building to ensure that the VbPD program can be supported to reach all K-6 teachers in the district after grant funds expire. The post-grant phase will necessitate difficult conversations and compromises, largely related to funding, but we have laid a strong foundation for a collaborative and reflective professional community within and across institutions that includes patience, compromise, and flexibility in problem solving.
Involving all stakeholders
In order to change the PUSD and CPP systems in ways that will sustain the RESPeCT program, the partnership institutions must move beyond the interactions of the leadership team to engage administrators, faculty, staff, and students at both the university and the district. Toward this goal, the PI team creates opportunities for a wide range of stakeholders to take authentic roles in collaborative activities. The RESPeCT program directly includes collaborative roles in the PUSD district for 35 teacher PD leaders, six treatment school principals, four teacher PD specialists (English Learner, English Language Arts, Primary Education, and Secondary Science), district level support staff, the Director of District Professional Development, the Director of Principal Support, and the Deputy Superintendent. At the university, science and mathematics content faculty, education faculty, a science content department chair, the Educational Outreach Center department chair, and CPP undergraduate students all play collaborative roles in the project. Engaging a diverse set of stakeholders is imperative for ensuring that the program meets the needs and interests of those who stand to benefit, namely the elementary teachers and students, but also to sustain the program despite turnover among critical individuals.
In addition to casting a broad net for stakeholder involvement, key individual leaders at both the district, school, and university levels play critical roles in maintaining everyone’s confidence in the program’s organization and in keeping teachers fully participating in the program. These key champions play a “boundary-spanning” or “bridging” role (Bosma el al. 2010; Goldring and Sims 2005; Weerts and Sandmann 2008) to ensure communication across institutional settings, advocate for program support across the many institutional stakeholders, bring awareness of partnership goals and activities, and invite stakeholders to learn about and provide feedback on partnership goals and activities.
Importance of research on student learning
Improving student learning outcomes is essential to sustain the current high level of support for the RESPeCT project. Both partners initially bought into the program largely based on the multiple and strong lines of evidence of effectiveness of this VbPD approach not only for teacher learning and teaching practice but also more importantly for student learning. Thus, high-quality research is essential for sustaining this work.
Strong preliminary analyses of teacher and student science learning and the enthusiasm of participating teachers are fueling efforts in the district to find ways to fund this work in the future. For example, PUSD is already committed to supporting ongoing RESPeCT PD work by using the district’s summer PD time for the RESPeCT program, taking on the tasks of purchasing and supplying science kits, scheduling the videotaping of science lessons, creating video clips and transcripts of those clips, and copying and organizing binders for future teacher participants. In support of these district commitments, the RESPeCT leadership team and CPP support staff are experimenting with ways to make the videotaping, uploading and sharing of video, clip making, and transcription processes easier for teacher leaders and Pomona support staff to do. In addition, some of the CPP science faculty are interested in continuing to provide district RESPeCT teacher leaders with “phone a friend” science content support even after the end of the grant.
Impact on student learning is also important at the university. In addition to formal research goals, the project also hopes to improve science and mathematics teaching and learning at the university through participating professors’ implementation of STeLLA strategies in their university classrooms. In addition, we anticipated from the beginning that some CPP science and math faculty will become ready and motivated to start up and support RESPeCT PD efforts in new school districts, especially those in areas surrounding the university so that future CPP students receive a strong foundation in their scientific understandings. Toward this goal, the project currently supports CPP science and math faculty with mentoring, modest reassigned time, experiences that help them learn about the K-6 teaching context in needy Title I schools, and involvement in education research and publication. Continued university support is needed to encourage faculty to engage in VbPD work beyond the life of the grant.