Tripod 7C’s Professional Development Research Project – MCS Overview

Purpose

To identify effective and cost-efficient methods of providing differentiated support to teachers through innovative professional development guided by the Tripod 7C’s of Effective Teaching

District Impact

720 Math and Science teachers will receive detailed reports of their Tripod Student Perception Survey results and access to a resource library of videos, activities, articles, and professional tools tailored to the Tripod 7C’s of Effective Teaching

o 120 will receive intensive personalized professional coaching o 600 will receive access to a supportive, collaborative, professional online network, the

Tripod 7C’s Community

Timeframe Oct 2011 – Sep 2014

Key Milestones

Dec 2011 – organize team & design professional development (PD) interventions

May 2012 - complete clinical trial

June 2012 – issue clinic trial findings

Aug 2012 - recruit participants into at scale trial

Sep 2012 – issue Tripod student survey online reports

Sep 2012 – complete further refinements of PD interventions

May 2013 – complete delivery of PD interventions

Sep 2013 - issue at scale short term findings

Sep 2014 - issue at scale final report

PD intervention components

Tripod student perception surveys & reports – to maximize teacher motivation

MyTeachingPartner (MTP) 7C’s consultancy – intensive one-on-one virtual PD which dovetails MTP with Tripod 7C’s approach

7C’s MTP online community – a low cost facilitated online collaborative community structured

around the 7C’s with 24/7 Access to 7C’s resource Archive including MTP PD video resources

Team members

Research team

Jens Ludwig - Principal Investigator University of Chicago

Ron Ferguson, Co-Investigator Harvard University

Bob Pianta, Co-Investigator University of Virginia

Steve Raudenbush, Co-Investigator University of Chicago

Implementation team – Cambridge Education

Rob Ramsdell - Project Director

Lorraine McAteer - Project Manager

Sarah Haavind – Consultancy & Community Lead

Marielle Palombo – Community Architect

Chantavia Burton – MCS Project Coordinator

Implementation team – Memphis City Schools

Tequilla Banks – Executive Director of TEI

Monica Jordan – MCS Project Lead

Jennifer Chandler – MCS Coaching Advisor

Scope Clinical trial (Phase 1)

Implementation of 2 PD interventions in Memphis City Schools (MCS)

Sample pool - ELA/social studies 4th

-12th

grade teachers

Total sample of - 300

20 assigned to MTP 7C’s consultancy

29 recruited to 7C’s MTP community

At-scale trial (Phase 2)

Implementation of 2 PD interventions in MCS and potentially 2 districts in North Carolina

Sample pool – math/science 4th

-12th

grade teachers

Potential maximum total sample - 3680

Maximum of 120 assigned to MTP 7C’s consultancy

Remaining will be divided equally between 7C’s MTP community treatment and control

Outcome measures

Student and teacher Tripod surveys; Classroom observations; Student value-added on achievement test scores

Tripod Student

perception surveys &

reports

The student perception survey includes a wide range of questions that are intended to cover key domains of teaching effectiveness that the Tripod system refers to as “the 7C’s.” The 7C’s of classroom-level instructional practice are: (1) Caring about students (nurturing productive relationships); (2) Controlling behavior (promoting cooperation and peer support); (3) Clarifying ideas and lessons (making success seem feasible); (4) Challenging students to work hard and think hard (pressing for effort and rigor); (5) Captivating students (making learning interesting and relevant); (6) Conferring (eliciting students’ feedback and respecting their ideas); (7) Consolidating (connecting and integrating ideas to support learning). Each of the 7C’s is measured using multiple items.

Rather than just providing information about how a teachers students perform on standardized tests, the Tripod student surveys provide more specific (and actionable) information about what aspects of the classroom environment are relatively stronger or weaker in relation to other benchmark samples of teachers and classrooms.

The fact that teachers are given not just the results of student Tripod reports in their own classrooms, but also information about the distribution of Tripod scores on different dimensions for other classrooms in the same school, other schools in the same district, and other districts, may further help motivate teachers to focus on improving areas of relative weakness.

Participating teachers will receive access to their students’ feedback online. On-line tutorials and open clinics will be available in order to support their understanding of how to access their data.

MTP 7C’s consultancy

The MTP consultancy combines the research proven strength of archived video examples of “best-practice” teaching with a highly supportive, individualized one-on-one consultancy focused around video recordings of participating teachers at work in their classrooms.

The MTP program focuses on the importance of student-teacher interactions as the key to promoting student academic motivation, effort, and achievement. Teachers and their MTP trained consultants together assess the extent to which interactions build a positive emotional climate and provide engaging instruction that promotes higher order thinking and ample opportunities to apply knowledge.

In collaboration with their MTP consultants, participants engage in a close examination of their teaching practice in terms of the 7C’s of teaching effectiveness, to design and implement action plans by completing eight cycles of MTP consultancy.

Within each cycle, participants record approximately 45 minutes of classroom video to share with their MTP consultant. The consultant reviews the recording and highlights three “clips” that highlight student-teacher interactions related to emotional climate and engaging instructional practices. Together the consultant and teacher examine the interactions, connect them with online MTP video exemplars and resources, and build action plans targeting one of the seven C’s of teaching effectiveness to focus the next cycle and video recording.

7C’s MTP online

community

The 7C’s community (http://tripod7cs.net/) will be a closed, asynchronous environment for a community of participating teachers and supporting educators (i.e., consultants and facilitators, from both Cambridge Education and the district). It is designed to support teachers in exploring the 7C’s and MTP resources, and connecting with colleagues to develop and refine teaching practices.

Participants can both draw upon and contribute to the repository of teaching resources through blog posts. They can also participate in online discussions initiated by facilitators or teacher participants. For example, discussions might involve sharing strategies for clarifying concepts (in general or in particular); reflecting on a lesson that incorporates a strategy for challenging students; or analyzing how a teacher in a classroom video clip controls the classroom to maximize learning time.

Several “PD Pathway Guides” offer brief (~3-hour), guided professional development activities focused on a given “C” that members can follow, submitting evidence of their work for PDPs. Support for more independent “build-your-own” PD pathways is also available. Community facilitators moderate activity, including welcome messages for new members, periodic emails to members highlighting specific content, and facilitation of the discussions to focus and deepen the collaborative learning and exchange. In addition, new resources are regularly added in response to interest.