Beyond Comparisons of Online Versus Face-to-Face PD

With the adoption of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English Language Arts (ELA) and math and the release and beginning adoptions of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), teachers, schools, and districts are clamoring for professional learning opportunities to refine and re-tool teaching to bring it in line with the reform visions in these documents. This increased need for professional development (PD) raises the question of the capacity of current systems of PD as well as the effectiveness of the most commonly used approaches. The nature of the new demands of these reforms and the scale of the need means that PD will have to use innovative approaches to handle the type of complex learning called for in these reforms, and will have to do so at scale (Wilson, 2013). Many may see online learning environments as part of a solution to address the scale issues, because of the ability to use this technology to reach broad audiences across a wide range of timeframes. There is interest in online or technology-mediated environments that promise certain kinds of functionality to support teachers in the complex work they are being asked to do (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). Wilson (2013) identifies the need to "harness new technologies and social media to make high-quality science PD available to all teachers" as one of the grand challenges in science education. We argue as part of our response to Fishman et al. that a corollary to the challenge of access is the challenge of developing research-based design principles to guide the ongoing development, implementation, and evaluation efforts in online PD to meet these new, complex demands in teacher learning. Others share this concern. Dede, Ketelhut, Whitehouse, Breit, and McCloskey (2009) lay out the case for the growing importance of online delivery of PD. At the same time, they convey unease about the scarcity of nuanced empirical work to guide the design and implementation of online PD models. Dede et al. make a twofold clarion call to funders and the field to (a) conduct empirical research to tease apart not only what works" but why and (b) focus on theory building that articulates design principles that can guide effective PD, disseminated in ways helpful to practitioners and researchers alike. In their recent Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) article, "Comparing the Impact of Online and Face-to-Face Professional Development in the Context of Curriculum Implementation," Fishman et al. (2013) contribute important findings to this empirical work by comparing different modalities of PD. The Fishman et al. randomized study of secondary teacher learning to support adoption of a new science curriculum makes a welcome contribution to a high need area of research. Their comparison of three critical measures of change across two different PD modalities--face-to-face and online--affirm the growing importance of studies, as Fishman et al. state, measuring "the impact of PD on teacher beliefs and practice and student learning as opposed to teacher self-report of change" (p. 2) in two different learning contexts. The finding that online PD could produce the same impact on measures of teacher beliefs, practice, and student learning as face-to-face PD is an important step forward. For the community designing, implementing, and researching PD environments, this finding encourages design and study of online PD and provides a solid foundation on which to build. Yet, important research questions remain unanswered. While the focus of the study was a comparison of two formats for delivery of PD, the design of the PD itself was somewhat underspecified. For example, there is not enough information in their article about specific design assumptions guiding PD learning goals, nor is there much detail about the specific nature of their evaluation measures. This is not intended to be critical, but to suggest that to take their findings as applicable to all online PD would be an overreach. …