Implementing and Sustaining Strategies Instruction: Authentic and Effective Professional Development or "Business as Usual"?

Abstract

Professional development that affects teacher practices and student performance does not imply simple, short-term, 1-way solutions, or "business as usual." Professional development that is well matched to teacher needs may be acutely important in enabling in-service teachers to teach academically diverse classes that include students with learning disabilities. Thus, the authentic professional development (APD) model was created and implemented as an effective approach for providing authentic, or teacher-friendly, professional development, particularly for the use of instructional and learning strategies from the strategies instructional model (e.g., Deshler & Schumaker, 1988). Teachers in the experimental group participated in the APD model at their schools, whereas comparison teachers participated in traditional professional development at a separate location. In this article, we describe the APD model and detail the results of a quantitative and qualitative study investigating the impact of APD on teacher use, perceived student outcomes, and teacher value.