Research on Professional Development and Teacher Change: Implications for Adult Basic Education

In this chapter, the authors draw on the K-12 and adult literacy education research literature to examine two topics: what is known about what makes teacher professional development effective, and how teachers change as a result of professional development. They begin to frame a review of how teacher professional development can promote student learning by first summarizing the state of professional development in ABE and grounding their discussion in those realities. Short-term or one-session workshops, trainings, seminars, lectures, and conference sessions are the mainstay of the traditional professional development model. Given its prevalence in education, however, recent K-12 reviews and studies have…