Chapter 7: Teacher Professional Learning in Dual Language Programs

This chapter presents an overview of studies exploring the effective features of professional learning programs, with a particular focus on the intersection of dual language programs, mathematics instruction, and elementary settings. Beginning teachers experience challenges distinct from teachers with decades of experience, and therefore have different needs when it comes to supporting their teaching and professional development (Feiman-Nemser, 1983). Across the career spectrum, and within and among teachers’ grade and subject specializations, school administrators must contend with how to differentiate professional learning programs to support their faculty’s diverse learning needs. This chapter discusses features of contexts that enhance and promote teacher professional learning in dual language programs, highlighting mathematics instruction. Considerations include the range of professional experiences of classroom faculty, diversity of teachers’ grade and subject specializations, cost-effectiveness, and sustained engagement with professional learning programs and communities.

Across these chapters, learning is described as an iterative process of moving toward expertise (e.g., Kelly, 2006, p. 514). At its most effective, a professional teacher does not become an expert spontaneously, in isolation, or in one step. One way teachers learn and develop is when they observe their students and take time to discuss these observations with fellow teachers. They learn and develop when they are systemically and thoughtfully provided structured and semi-structured opportunities to critically explore practice-informing theories while receiving guidance from peers and experts, as they apply what they learn in their own classrooms (e.g., Borko, 2004; Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995). A commonly cited feature of effective teacher professional development (TPD) is frequent opportunities for teachers’ mutual collaboration (Kizilbash, 2020), enacted through structures that are sustained, ongoing, intensive, and supported (DarlingHammond & McLaughlin, 1995). In the specialized context of dual language programs, it is additionally critical for TPD content to attend to two overlapping categories of teachers’ knowledge: pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987) and pedagogical language knowledge (Bunch, 2013; Galguera, 2011).

This chapter is divided into three parts. The first section briefly reviews research on effective features of teacher professional learning and development, with a specific focus on the needs of elementary teachers working in dual language programs teaching mathematics. The second section presents a detailed examination of a particular hybrid TPD structure—Lesson Study With Video Club. This structure illustrates one method of TPD that empirically supports teachers’ professional growth in the dual language program (DLP) environment. The last section offers generalized recommendations for developing more effective and teacher centered TPD experiences in specialized contexts.