“It Took Someone Telling Me That I Could Do It”

Abstract

This multicase study seeks to privilege teachers’ voices related to their experiences within a year-long job-embedded professional development (PD) program. The district initiated the request for PD, which was negotiated and provided by a literacy educator from a nearby university. Eleven second- and third-grade teachers and the language arts coordinator participated. PD consisted of regular visits to teachers’ classrooms and opportunities for weekly individual meetings with each of the teachers, both scheduled by the individual teachers. For data analysis purposes, each teacher’s thread was defined as a single case. Process coding served as a mechanism for most accurately describing participants’ experiences and resulted in 11 codes: affirming, reflecting, owning, observing, applying, questioning, collaborating, disclaiming, modeling, sharing, and communicating. Overall, nine participants explicitly described the individualized PD as a success. Implications for planning, carrying out, and engaging in PD are discussed.