Professional Development Success

AIHE’s Results Oriented Professional Development Philosophy

Successful supervisors often tell us that they must help the teachers appreciate that Professional Development is an educative process, not a series of trainings. Education allows individuals to think both critically and creatively. Research continually demonstrates that critical thinking can only take place when individuals have a competent grasp of substantive content. Training, on the other hand, teaches individuals to perform particular tasks. In many cases, there is no need for critical or creative thinking. One only has to follow the directions, one step at a time. Conversely, teachers who pursue education and work as professionals and continually adapt new substantive content and quality teaching methods to their lessons have the students with the greatest gains in achievement.

The American Institute for History Education looks to treat teachers as college-educated professionals. Sometimes, AIHE presenters will give teachers make-and-take materials to use on Monday and Tuesday. AIHE, however, is more interested in providing teachers with methods and the means to educate students also on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and for years to come. Independent evaluations clearly show that the AIHE method is having beneficial longitudinal effects in social studies teachers’ classrooms.

Let’s Look at the Results

Teacher Achievement — As recorded with the U.S. Department of Education in official reports by independent evaluators, in TAH grants that received AIHE professional development through the “Liberty Fellowship” structure, teachers have increased their content knowledge by 11 raw points in the course of one year (21 percent increase) based on grant pre-tests and end-of-year post-tests. Urban district teachers did the best and scored 16 raw points (not percentage) better on tests. Furthermore, 98 percent of 675 teacher responses would recommend their AIHE experience to colleagues! Teachers were in 18 different Summer Institutes and more than 45 colloquia in different states.

The AIHE Fellowship was rated “one of my top professional development experiences ever” by nearly nine in ten teachers (87 percent). More than nine in ten of teachers (92 percent) agree that they will “definitely use what I learned in the classroom.” An identical proportion (92 percent) of 487 teacher responses stated that their training influenced them to modify their existing curricula. AIHE sessions provided useful skills in the classroom for 98 percent of teacher participants and taught “new and interesting” subject matter for 96 percent. Furthermore, the AIHE colloquia and Summer Institutes increased teacher “depth of understanding of the topics covered” and provided skills or knowledge that teachers can “apply to other areas of history or teaching,” according to 95 percent of the 503 teacher responses.

Student Achievement — More impressive, with student achievement, among high school students in rural-suburban school districts, students of teachers in their second year of the AIHE TAH program scored 30 percent higher on a test of nationally validated history content questions than students in a matched comparison district in a quasi-experimental design study. The AIHE project students also had scores rise 23 percent in their districts from the first to second year of the program. Remarkably, AIHE TAH elementary scores rose 38 percent from the previous year. The student data is based on 576 students and 13,936 data responses. Moreover, urban students of teachers in the AIHE TAH programs scored 44 percent higher on a test of nationally validated history content questions than students in match comparison districts in a quasi-experimental design. Student data is based on 742 students and 18,929 data responses.