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JEA
55,5 Teacher peer excellence
groups (TPEGs)
Building communities of practice for
526 instructional improvement
Received 28 August 2016
Xiu Cravens
Revised 28 December 2016 College of Education and Human Development,
29 December 2016
Accepted 4 January 2017 Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Timothy A. Drake
Education Leadership, Policy, and Human Development,
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
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Ellen Goldring
College of Education and Human Development,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, and
Patrick Schuermann
Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the viability of implementing a protocol-guided model
designed to provide structure and focus for teacher collaboration from Shanghai in today’s US public schools.
The authors examine whether the new model, Teacher Peer Excellence Group (TPEG), fosters the desired key
features of productive communities of practice where teachers can jointly construct, transform, preserve,
and continuously deepen the meaning of effective teaching. The authors also explore the extent to which
existing school conditions – principal instructional leadership, trust, teacher efficacy, and teachers’ sense of
school-wide professional community – enable or moderate the desired outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach – Data for this paper are drawn from a series of surveys administered to
teachers from 24 pilot schools in six school districts over two school years. Descriptive and multilevel
modeling analyses are conducted.
Findings – The findings provide encouraging evidence that, given sufficient support and guidance, teachers
report higher levels of engagement in deprivatized practice and instructional collaboration. These findings
also hold after controlling for key enabling conditions and school characteristics.
Social implications – The TPEG approach challenges school leaders to take on the responsibilities of
helping teachers make their practice public, sharable, and better – three critical objectives in the shift to
develop the profession of teaching.
Originality/value – The indication of TPEG model’s positive impact on strengthening the features of
communities of practice in selected public schools provides the impetus for further efforts in understanding
the transformational changes needed and challenges ahead at the classroom, school, and district levels.
Keywords Instructional leadership, Teacher professional development, Community of practice
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Research suggests that variation in student-learning outcomes is partially attributable to the
structure, focus, and quality of teachers’ work, much of which may be observable and subject
to both external stimuli for improvement and internal drive for professional-community
Journal of Educational
Administration building (Bruce and Ross, 2008; Levine and Marcus, 2010; Louis et al., 1996). Today the idea
Vol. 55 No. 5, 2017
pp. 526-551
that teacher collaboration contributes to instructional improvement is widely accepted by
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0957-8234
schools and districts, where more resources and time have been designated to encourage
DOI 10.1108/JEA-08-2016-0095 teachers to work together, and various pathways have been explored to create collective
learning opportunities (Desimone, 2009; Louis et al., 1996; Youngs and King, 2002). Teacher peer
Despite significant and continued efforts, however, states, districts, and schools have not seen excellence
consistent and sustainable effect on the improvement of practice in the average classroom groups
(Hiebert et al., 2002; Levine and Marcus, 2010).
The notion of communities of practice specifically describes how teachers jointly
construct, transform, preserve, and continuously deepen the meaning of effective teaching
(Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). In recent years, researchers have focused on 527
communities of practice because such communities are considered as a potentially
effective and malleable approach to optimize instructional conditions for student learning
(Leithwood et al., 2004). Researchers, practitioners, and policy makers converge on the
realization that teachers must engage in ongoing professional development that is of high
relevance to instructional practice and more importantly, sustainable with peer-to-peer
networking and support (Hattie, 2015a, b; Penuel et al., 2009).
It is increasingly clear that simply carving out time for teachers to work together
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perspectives is available from literature generated in recent decades. Much has also been
discussed about the optimal environment that may foster and sustain the impact of
structural changes and support teacher collaboration that lead to instructional
improvement. While largely conceptual and exploratory, previous studies have helped
put together a multifaceted picture depicting the purpose, outcome features, and enabling
school conditions for such communities.
shared experience and practice (Bruce et al., 2010; Goddard et al., 2007; Printy, 2008;
Ross et al., 2006). The extents to which teachers focus on instructional methods, activities,
and the evaluation of curriculum are most essential (Goddard et al., 2007). Furthermore, it is
important that the collaboration sustains iterative cycles of goal setting/planning,
practicing, and reflecting to ensure that skills and knowledge are shared and improved
upon. As a result, the classroom will become the primary testing ground for continuous
improvement of teaching.
Deprivatized practice. Little (2002) points out that the transparency with which teachers
represent their practice sets the expectation for teachers to learn from their collaborative
work. Such work is further defined by the specificity and completeness with which they
publicly share what they do. “See your colleagues’ work and let them see yours,” begins a
conversation that is grounded in classroom instruction (Bruce et al., 2010). Teachers need to
be comfortable with operating in a system that allows them to treat ideas for teaching as
objects that can be shared and examined publicly, and participate in improving ideas that
can be stored and accumulated and passed along to the next iteration or next group of
teachers. The results of such dialogues, when depicted with clarity and concrete detail and
stored and shared, serve as a resource for individual and collective learning (Snow, 2001).
For example, at the grassroots level, subject-based “teaching-study groups” are the driving
force for instructional quality and improvement in Shanghai and many parts of China.
Structured and teacher-led collaboration not only guides for teaching activities, but also
provides a platform for formative assessment and development for instructional knowledge
and skills. In Shanghai, conducting cross-school teaching study serves as an extension of
the school-based teacher collaboration, which consists of three parts: first, peer classroom
observation, second, explanation of the lesson given by the teacher who teaches the lesson,
which usually includes topics on the considerations given to planning the particular lesson,
what alterations (compared with the lesson plan) have been made during the process of the
lesson and why they are necessary, and what evaluation the teacher himself/herself gives
about this lesson, and third, analysis, comments, and suggestions made by other teachers.
This process is widely practiced, and largely seen as the self-examining, self-propelling, and
self-improving mechanism within each school for effective instruction (Wang, 2013).
proactive and participate more in solving problems and advancing learning agendas.
While having strong communities of practice is one of the most important features
of school culture that foster teacher satisfaction, effectiveness, and even retention, the level
of trust and risk-taking required to elevate teaching from isolated activity to the
public sphere of communities of practice (Fullan, 2007) may be very daunting to many
teachers. In particular, the current climate of increasing external accountability may cause
teachers to feel more vulnerable to outside observations of their teaching practice,
and less willing to critique their peers on the quality and effectiveness of their instruction.
Research evidences also reveal that even when conditions are more favorable and
implementation strategies are highly supportive, the cultural of privacy and conflict
avoidance could be so prevalent that many teachers might retreat to their isolated
classrooms (Fullan et al., 2006).
Teacher efficacy. As a social cognitive theory founded by Albert Bandura (1982, 2001),
teacher efficacy is essentially teachers’ self-assessment of their ability to facilitate and support
student learning. Teachers with high teacher efficacy believe that they can positively impact
the outcome of student learning despite challenging circumstances such as shortage of
resources, time, and disadvantaged student populations. Research that connects teacher
efficacy with instructional improvement reveals that teachers with high efficacy are more
likely to persist to meet teaching goals when faced with obstacles; are more likely to
experiment with effective yet challenging instructional strategies such as student-directed
methods; and are more likely to collaborate with other teachers (Bruce and Ross, 2008;
Goddard et al., 2004; Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 2001). Levine and Marcus (2010, p. 1599)
identify four main sources of teacher efficacy: “[…] mastery experiences (direct teaching
experiences that are challenging but highly successful); vicarious experiences (watching peers
of similar ability levels teach challenging ideas with high success); physiological and
emotional states (feelings of success and confidence); and social and verbal persuasion
(receiving positive feedback from students, peers and superiors).” With strong content
knowledge and instructional skills, teachers will have more confidence that grows with more
classroom mastery experiences. Furthermore, previous research also shows a strong
connection between teacher efficacy and teacher professional learning opportunities
(Levine and Marcus, 2010; Bruce et al., 2010). Teacher efficacy has also been seen through
the social capital lens (Spillane et al., 2015), where strong peer-to-peer connection can enhance
commitment to a community and contribute to a sense of belonging and efficacy
(Grodsky and Gamoran, 2003). Furthermore, research studies show that teachers who have
more effective peers are more effective themselves, and peer learning might account for up to
20 percent of the variation in their instructional effectiveness (Goldhaber and Hansen, 2010).
JEA Essentially, a virtuous cycle is created between efficacy and professional learning: teachers’
55,5 competence level increases with professional learning embedded in direct classroom
experiences; higher mastery also propels keener senses in identifying deficiencies in
instructional effectiveness and hence stronger desires for instructional improvement
(Bruce and Ross, 2008; Bruce et al., 2010; Puchner and Taylor, 2006).
is grounded in classroom practice using iterative cycles of teacher planning, practice, and
reflection. It is a disciplined collaborative inquiry approach that captures the fundamental
elements of building a professional knowledge base for teaching: the practice of teaching is
made public through peer observations, lesson planning, and feedback; the product of
collective work on improving classroom teaching is cumulative, accessible, and sharable
with other teachers; and there is a mechanism for validation and improvement based on
expertise (Hiebert et al., 2002). These elements are also well reflected in other international
models of teacher collaboration such as the Japanese lesson study (Hiebert et al., 2002;
Jensen, 2012; Leithwood et al., 2010).
Educational experts attributed the remarkable performance of Shanghai’s students to
successful educational reform that started in the early 1980s, where there was “devoted
professional attention to teaching and learning amidst all the administrative chores and
political issues” (p. 89) by educators and a rigorous framework for sustaining school-level
communities of practice for teaching through the operation of “teaching-study groups”
(OECD, 2010). In Shanghai, this model has succeeded in raising teacher and student
performance across the board; as evidenced by the number of disadvantaged students who
excel in Shanghai schools, despite their background, being twice as high as in the USA
( Jensen et al., 2016; OECD, 2010; Yang, 2008).
The TPEG process is designed to be owned and led by teachers with important supports
provided by the principal. Conceptually, the desired outcomes of successful TPEGs include
the deprivatization of teacher practice through peer observations, collaborative planning,
giving and receiving actionable feedback, and holding each other accountable for
implementing improvement measures. More importantly, each step includes specific
instructional objectives that are aligned with measurable external accountability outcomes
(see Figure 1).
533
Teacher Peer
Lesson Excellence
Group (TPEGTM) Observation
Refinement
Learning
Cycle
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Feedback Figure 1.
Validated for Storable and The TPEG model
Improvement Shareable
leadership and teacher capacity. In all, a total of three schools were chosen per district,
making a total of 18 participant schools. Principals were asked to form at least two TPEG
groups, one focused on Math and another focused on English/Language Arts. Principals
were also given the option to make their groups within or across grade level.
For school year 2014-2015, the implementation was expanded and further developed
within two of the original six districts, one urban and one rural. In the urban county,
three schools were added to the initial three. In the rural county, the TPEG model was
expanded district-wide, which included six schools new to the TPEG model, alongside the
three initial schools. These two counties were chosen for several reasons. First,
the implementation of the TPEG model received strong support in 2013-2014 from the
district leaders in these two systems. Second, early implementation of the TPEG model
was outstanding in the six current participating schools based on preset output/outcome
measures, such as increased collegiality and collaboration around core instructional and
content-related competencies, high levels of trust among grade level and subject area
TPEG teams, and improvement in knowledge about and enhanced practice in
domains aligned with the TN TEAM rubric. Finally, these two counties, one urban and
relatively large and the other, an adjacent neighbor, rural and small, offered sufficient
diversity in school size, student SES compositions, teacher workforce capacity,
and administrative structure to serve as viable places for the further development and
validation of the TPEG model.
TPEG implementation
During each of the implementation years, principals began implementing the TPEG process
at the start of the school year. After a few weeks of initial implementation, participating
principals or assistant principals went to Shanghai, China, and spent a weeklong study tour
on the multilevel and multifaceted “Shanghai Model” ( Jensen, 2012; Wang, 2013). The study
tour was carefully designed by the researchers for the participants to focus on the structure
and focus of collaboration among the Chinese teachers, and to discuss the rationale for,
implementation of, and challenges to each key element of the process. Many found this
experience to be very helpful and adjusted the implementation of their TPEG processes to
not only more closely reflect the non-negotiable objectives of the TPEG model, but better
adapted to the local needs at their own schools. In the following months, each TPEG
JEA conducted multiple “cycles” of lesson planning, observation, feedback, and lesson revision.
55,5 Specific lengths of each cycle varied from once a week to every six weeks. The frequency of
peer observations also varied from school to school. Cycle documents were submitted to the
university research team for content analysis and feedback.
Research questions
534 In this paper, we study the viability of implementing a protocol-guided model designed to
capture the essence of effective communities of practice in today’s US public schools.
We constructed a conceptual framework based on the review of the literature (see Figure 2)
to guide our analyses of how TPEGs operate and impact important learning outcomes.
We highlight that that the TPEG model aims to provide structure and focus to teacher
collaboration with three non-negotiable objectives for the communities of practice – public;
shareable and storable; and with a mechanism to verify and validate instructional
improvement. We situate the implementation, development, and measurement of the impact
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Enabling
Conditions Outcomes
• Instructional Lesson
Leadership Planning
• Instructional
• School-wide Collaboration
Professional Lesson
Observation
Refinement TPEGTM
Community
• Deprivatized
• Trust Feedback
Practice
• Efficacy
Figure 2. Instructional
Conceptual
Improvement
relationship
extent are pre-existing conditions of principal instructional leadership, teacher Teacher peer
trust, teacher efficacy, and teachers’ sense of school-wide professional community excellence
associated with the TPEG effect? groups
RQ3. Which instructional practices are most improved as reported by TPEG teachers?
How does this vary by important school characteristics?
535
Methods
Data
Data for this paper are drawn from a series of surveys administered to teachers during the
2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school years. The pre-surveys were administered in the fall of 2013
and 2014, and asked teachers to reflect upon the previous school year and answer a variety
of questions on their own teaching practices, school climate and culture, teacher trust and
efficacy, and principal instructional leadership. Additionally, the pre-surveys asked
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Measures
Measures for the study were developed in three steps to take into account both the
theoretical underpinnings and empirical evidences (Ang, 2005). We started with the
conceptual framework and theoretical assumptions behind the TPEG model, and identified
available sources for survey items for specific constructs from existing studies. Second,
given that the TPEG implementation is new to the US school contexts, we developed survey
items to specifically fit the expectation of possible reaction, influence, and impact.
The pre-post surveys were then piloted and revised before being distributed. Finally,
we conducted exploratory factor analyses (EFA) with actual teachers’ survey responses to
JEA 2013-2014 2014-2015
55,5 Teachers TPEG Teachers TPEG
School All (n) TPEG (n) % All (n) TPEG (n) %
2013-2014 2014-2015
Pre-Survey Post-Survey Pre-Survey Post-Survey
Table II. Observations (matched) 390 417 (323) 278 217 (97)
Summary of survey Response rate (%) 68 61 93.6 73.1
response rates Total schools 15 18 9 9
identify patterns that could be used to confirm and further operationalize the measures
included in this study. To generate the factors, we pooled both years of survey data. For the
enabling conditions, we conducted the factor analysis on all of the pre-surveys completed in
either implementation year; for the outcome measures, we conducted a separate factor
analysis on the post-survey responses across both implementation years.
Using the standard approach of retaining factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, we
found seven underlying constructs emerged from the data – three outcome measures and
four enabling conditions. To aid in the identification of patterns of loadings across factors,
we used promax rotation. One consequence of this rotation is that the rotated factors are
allowed to correlate with one another, since we believe that the underlying constructs are
interconnected. A summary of each measure is listed in Table III and the formation of
survey items can be found in the Appendix.
Survey
Teacher peer
Survey items Scale Mean (SD) α excellence
groups
Dependent variables
RQ1. Instruction-focused Pre-post 11 “Never” ¼ 1 0.12 (0.69) 0.89
collaboration difference “One to two times per semester” ¼ 2
“One to two times per month” ¼ 3
“One to two times per week” ¼ 4 537
RQ2. comfort with Post-survey 9 Sliding scale from 0 to 100 78.19 (17.39) 0.87
deprivatized practice
RQ2. engagement with Post-survey 4 “Never” ¼ 1 2.08 (0.70) 0.90
deprivatized practice “One to two times per semester” ¼ 2
“One to two times per month” ¼ 3
“One to two times per week” ¼ 4
RQ3. instructional and Post-survey 12 “Not at all” ¼ 1 – –
achievement outcomesa “Very little” ¼ 2
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“Somewhat” ¼ 3
“To a great extent” ¼ 4
Independent variables
Principal instructional Pre-survey 8 “Strongly disagree” ¼ 1 3.04 (0.67) 0.94
leadership “Disagree” ¼ 2
“Agree” ¼ 3
“Strongly agree” ¼ 4
Professional community Pre-survey 9 “Strongly disagree” ¼ 1 2.78 (0.53) 0.82
“Disagree” ¼ 2
“Agree” ¼ 3
“Strongly agree” ¼ 4
Teacher trust Pre-survey 7 “Strongly disagree” ¼ 1 2.58 (0.63) 0.84
“Disagree” ¼ 2
“Agree” ¼ 3
“Strongly agree” ¼ 4
Teacher efficacy Pre-survey 5 “Strongly disagree” ¼ 1 3.23 (0.43) 0.79
“Disagree” ¼ 2
“Agree” ¼ 3
“Strongly agree” ¼ 4
Notes: Data pooled across both academic years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. aNo factor analysis conducted;
survey items will be used to provide descriptive results for RQ3 Table III.
Source: Authors’ calculations Summary of measures
post-surveys were minimal and did not include any teachers who reported TPEG
participation in the pre-survey only (i.e. there were no teachers who transferred out
of a TPEG group).
Independent variables: enabling conditions. The factor analysis on the pre-survey items
resulted in four factors which we labeled principal instructional leadership, sense of school-
wide professional community, teacher trust, and teacher efficacy. The first factor, principal
instructional leadership, is composed of eight survey items that come from two survey
questions with a common Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”
These items all generally related to principal leadership. The mean for this factor is 3.04 and
a standard deviation of 0.67. The α coefficient is 0.94. The sense of school-wide professional
community factor is composed of nine survey items that come from two survey questions
related to teachers’ sense of a professional community. The factor has a mean of 2.78 and a
standard deviation of 0.53, with an α coefficient of 0.82. Both of the survey questions used
for this factor have the same Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly
agree.” We labeled the third factor teacher trust. It comes from two survey questions with
seven items in total and the same Likert scale as the other two factors. The mean for this
factor is 2.58 and a standard deviation of 0.63. The α coefficient is 0.84. The final factor,
teacher efficacy, contains five survey items from two survey questions with the same Likert
scale as above. The mean for this factor is 3.23 and a standard deviation of 0.79, with an
α coefficient of 0.79. The correlations between these factors are positive and moderately
strong, ranging from 0.31 to 0.49.
Independent variables: school-level moderators. We also include a set of school-level
variables to capture inter-school differences. These include a variety of measures related to
student achievement and demographics, as well as a measure that captures school level.
Analytic strategy
Our analysis proceeds in two stages. For RQ1 and RQ2, we use a multilevel model (MLM) to
estimate the following:
Level 1: teachers
TPEG Outcomeij ¼ b0j þb1j TPEGij þbkj Enabling Conditionsij þbnj Schoolj þeij
Level 2: schools
539
where TPEG Outcome is one of the three dependent variables: instruction-focused
collaboration (pre-post change), comfort with deprivatized practice, and engagement in
deprivatized practice, as defined above. TPEG is the binary variable: 1 if the teacher was
ever a TPEG participant, 0 if not. Enabling Conditions are four independent variables:
instructional leadership, sense of school-wide professional community, teacher trust, and
teacher efficacy as defined above. School represents the seven independent variables:
percent proficient/advanced on state standardized math test; percent proficient/advanced on
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Findings
RQ1 – TPEG participation and changes in instructional collaboration
For our first research question, we ask whether participation in the TPEG process leads to
differential changes in instruction-focused collaboration. We first note that teachers
reported high levels of instruction-focused collaboration at the start of the school year;
that is, on a scale of 1 (i.e. no collaboration) to 4 (one to two times per week), teachers
reported an average of 3.14. In addition, teachers’ levels of collaboration increased across
the school year by an average of 0.11 points. Responding teachers reported the greatest
changes in collaboration with respect to modifying instructions, joint lesson planning,
and developing an understanding of content, all of which are important elements of the
TPEG process.
To further examine whether these changes might be attributable to TPEG participation,
we estimate the MLM model outlined above, with the pre-post change in instruction-focused
collaboration scale as our dependent variable. As a reminder, we use the pre-post difference
to account for teachers’ previous levels of collaboration to examine whether the TPEG
JEA process has a differential and positive impact on teachers’ collaborative practices. Table IV
55,5 summarizes the estimated model coefficients. The null model (model 1) suggests that about
9 percent of the variation in instruction-focused collaboration can be explained by
differences between schools, with an average difference across all teachers of about 0.11
( p ¼ 0.06). After including an indicator variable for TPEG participation, we find that TPEG
participants across both implementation years reported, on average, a difference of 0.19
540 points in collaborative instructional practices ( p o0.01) during their implementation year,
or nearly a third of standard deviation. Furthermore, this result holds after controlling for
key enabling conditions and other important school characteristics.
We also find that teachers’ perceptions of their principals’ instructional leadership
positively predicted changes in their instructional collaboration. Specifically, teachers who
indicated higher agreement on the principal instructional leadership scale[1] were more
likely to have larger changes in their pre-post difference in instruction-focused collaboration.
In recent years many states, Tennessee included, have implemented comprehensive teacher
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Fixed effects
Level 1 (teacher)
Intercept 0.11 (0.06)**** 0.04 (0.07) 0.42 (0.31) 0.30 (1.19)
TPEG – 0.19 (0.07)** 0.15 (0.07)* 0.16 (0.07)*
Instructional leadership – – 0.16 (0.07)** 0.18 (0.06)**
Professional community – – −0.21 (0.09)* −0.21 (0.09)*
Teacher trust – – −0.19 (0.07)** −0.22 (0.07)**
Teacher efficacy – – 0.07 (0.10) 0.09 (0.09)
Level 2 (school)
Middle/high school – – – 0.50 (0.18)**
Other school controls No No No Yes
Random effects
Residual (within schools) 0.47 0.46 0.45 0.45
Intercept (between schools) 0.05 0.05 0.04 0.04
Intraclass correlation 0.09 0.10 0.09 0.08
Adjusted R2 within – 0.02 0.04 0.04
Adjusted R2 between – – – 0.26
Number of groups 23 23 23 23
Table IV.
Model summaries: Number of observations 420 420 420 420
DV ¼ changes in Notes: Data pooled from both implementation years. Standard errors in parentheses. Other school controls
instruction-focused include: % proficient math and reading, % LEP, % free-reduced lunch, % minority, % SPED. *p o0.05;
collaboration **p o 0.01; ****p o0.10
result of the positive and moderate inter-correlations between teacher trust, school-wide Teacher peer
professional community, and instruction-focused collaboration. One might hypothesize that excellence
schools with pre-existing strong professional community and teacher trust might be more groups
advanced in instructional collaboration and therefore report less pre-post change.
Model 4 also suggests that teachers in middle and high schools reported a higher average
difference of 0.50 points than their elementary school counterparts; that is, middle and high
school teachers seemed to grow more in their instruction-focused collaboration throughout 541
the implementation years, a result that may be partially attributable to their lower reported
average on the pre-survey. It is also plausible that departmentalized instruction in most
middle and high schools are more conducive for implementing TPEG-like activities that are
organized by subject matter expertise.
practices associated with deprivatization after TPEG implementation (see Appendix for survey
items). On average, teachers felt most comfortable with collaboratively developing lesson plans,
making work products available to other teachers, and receiving feedback about their teaching
practice. More specifically, on a sliding scale from 0 to 100, teachers rated these items above 80.
Other practices that teachers were least comfortable engaging in were trying new/innovative
approaches (mean ¼ 68.1) while being observed by other teachers and providing feedback to
teachers about their teaching practice (mean ¼ 63.1). With respect to teachers’ reported
engagement in co-developed lesson planning, peer observation, and peer feedback, teachers
reported relatively low engagement with all of these practices (on average about one to two
times per semester). Across all items, the highest engagement was in providing feedback, and
the lowest was in receiving feedback from other teachers.
To examine whether these scales vary by TPEG participation, we estimated MLM
predicting teacher-reported comfort with deprivatized teaching practices (Table V). In Model 1,
Fixed effects
Level 1 (teacher)
Intercept 80.17 (1.21)*** 76.91 (1.37)*** 67.05 (6.60)*** 70.93 (22.60)**
TPEG – 8.58 (1.51)*** 8.37 (1.51)*** 8.54 (1.53)***
Instructional leadership – – 4.05 (1.43)** 3.60 (1.50)*
Professional community – – 0.13 (1.95) 0.26 (1.98)
Teacher trust – – −1.17 (1.51) −0.79 (1.60)
Teacher efficacy – – 0.03 (2.09) −0.43 (2.15)
Level 2 (school)
Middle/high school – – – 2.32 (2.92)
Other school controls No No No Yes
Random effects
Residual (within schools) 226.12 208.70 207.74 208.00
Intercept (between schools) 17.35 20.25 15.38 18.56
Intraclass correlation 0.07 0.09 0.07 0.081907
2
Adjusted R within – 0.08 0.08 0.07
Adjusted R2 between – – – 0.02
Number of groups 23 23 23 23
Number of observations 409 409 409 409 Table V.
Notes: Data pooled from both implementation years. Standard errors in parentheses. Other school controls Model summaries:
include: % proficient math and reading, % LEP, % free-reduced lunch, % minority, % SPED. *po 0.05; DV ¼ comfort with
**p o0.01; ***p o0.001 deprivatized practice
JEA we find that 7 percent of the variation in teachers’ comfort with deprivatized practice is
55,5 attributable to between-school variation, with an average level of comfort of about 80 points
(scale ¼ 0 to 100; po0.001). Models 2-4 suggest that TPEG teachers, on average, report a
significant difference of about 8.5 points in their comfort with deprivatized practices
( po0.001). We also find that principal instructional leadership positively predicts teachers
comfort with deprivatized teaching practices. None of the other enabling conditions or school
542 characteristics are associated with teacher-reported levels of comfort with deprivatized
teaching practices.
Table VI summarizes MLMs predicting teachers-reported engagement in deprivatized
practice. As a reminder, this scale includes teachers reporting on the frequency with which
they engage in behaviors related to observing other teachers teaching, providing
feedback, being observed by other teachers, and receiving feedback – all core components
of the TPEG model (Figures 1 and 3). As expected, TPEG teachers across both
implementation years reported an average significant difference of about 0.94 points
( p o 0.001) on the scale of 1 to 4, which represents about a 1.36 standard deviation
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difference in engagement (Model 2). This result holds even after controlling for the key
enabling conditions and school context factors, all of which are not statistically
significant. Thus, both Tables V and VI suggest that compared with non-TPEG teachers,
TPEG teachers reported higher levels of comfort with and engagement in practices
associated with deprivatization.
Fixed effects
Level 1 (teacher)
Intercept 2.09 (0.06)*** 1.73 (0.05)*** 1.86 (0.26)*** 2.34 (1.04)*
TPEG – 0.94 (0.06)*** 0.93 (0.06)*** 0.94 (0.06)***
Instructional leadership – – 0.05 (0.06) 0.06 (0.06)
Professional community – – 0.02 (0.08) 0.03 (0.08)
Teacher trust – – −0.04 (0.06) −0.05 (0.06)
Teacher efficacy – – −0.08 (0.08) −0.06 (0.08)
Level 2 (school)
Middle/high School – – – 0.08 (0.18)
Other school controls No No No Yes
Random effects
Residual (within schools) 0.52 0.32 0.32 0.05
Intercept (between schools) 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.04
Intraclass correlation 0.08 0.10 0.10 0.14
Adjusted R2 within – 0.38 0.38 0.38
2
Adjusted R between – – – 0.16
Number of groups 23 23 23 23
Table VI. Number of observations 417 417 417 417
Model summaries: Notes: Data pooled from both implementation years. Standard errors in parentheses. Other school controls
DV ¼ engagement in include: % proficient math and reading, % LEP, % free-reduced lunch, % minority, % SPED. *p o0.05;
deprivatized practice ***p o0.001
Process for continual PD Teacher peer
The variety of pedagogical approaches that you use in your classroom excellence
Student learning groups
Your overall effectiveness as a teacher
3.3**
Process for continual PD 3.0
3.2
The variety of pedagogical approaches that you use in your classroom 3.1
3.2
Student learning 3.1
3.2*
Your overall effectiveness as a teacher 3.0
3.2**
Opportunity to make the practice of teaching public 2.9
3.1**
Amount of effective teaching strategies R can access 2.9
3.1*
The culture of trust in your school 2.8
3.1*
An increase in overall levels of teacher effectiveness in your school 2.8
Your own content understanding 3.1***
2.7
Your TEAM observation scores 3.0*
2.8
Contributions to the performance of students across multiple grades/subjects 2.9
2.7
A decrease in gap between higher and lower performing tchers 2.8
2.7
teacher trust, and teacher efficacy, we found no significant differences between TPEG and
non-TPEG teachers. While these tests for differences allay some of our concern about
selection bias, there still may be unobservable characteristics of TPEG teachers not
accounted for in these measures that may contribute to estimated differences in our
outcome measures.
A second limitation relates to teacher non-response to our pre- and post-surveys.
In particular, teachers who participated in the TPEG process may be more predisposed to
answer the survey because of the familiarity with the research team and project.
As mentioned above, nearly equal percentages of TPEG and non-TPEG teachers
participated in the survey in both years of data collection, leading us to believe that there
should not be any systematic differences between the two groups. The three schools not
included in the final analysis due to missing pre-surveys seem to represent schools that are
more affluent and higher achieving than those included in the analysis.
A final limitation is reflected in the nature of this pilot study. Qualitative interviews and
focus groups suggest that TPEG implementation varied widely by school. Although our
analyses will address these inter- and intra-school differences, it is important to recognize
that TPEG participation is not reflective of a single design or model; rather, schools varied
in the composition of their groups, as well as the number and length of TPEG cycles.
Future work will examine the relationship between these differences and TPEG outcomes.
In future work we also plan to link the TPEG process to more concrete evidence of
instructional improvement, such as teachers’ formal observation scores.
intended outcomes of the TPEG model. However, while TPEG teachers consistently report
being more comfortable with deprivatized teaching practices and more engaged in such
practices compared with “regular” teachers, changing the structure and focus of traditional
teaching is challenging. For example, our analysis indicate that middle and high school
teachers tend to have a lower average start on these measures but report higher average
gains in instructional collaboration. We also find that in elementary schools where teachers
are more confined to their classrooms and less specialized, teachers report less engagement
in deprivatized teaching and less instructional collaboration. The same difficulty is also
detected among schools with lower SES student populations, where teachers may have to
devote more time to non-academic concerns for the students and their families.
It is important to note that, while diverse in school size, grade levels, urban/rural setting,
and student background characteristics, the pilot schools were identified purposively with
proven records of commitment to school improvement. It is plausible that important
enabling school conditions such as trust and teacher efficacy are more in place and less
varied relative to other schools. Moreover, as we find positive gain of instructional
collaboration among TPEG teachers as compared to their “regular” peers, we also see that
teachers’ sense of school-wide professional community in the previous year is a significant
predictor for the TPEG success. Once again this is a reminder that collaboration and teacher
development are closely interconnected and mutually reinforcing activities.
When investigating which instructional practices are most improved as reported by
TPEG teachers, we find that teachers make a strong connection between their participation
in the newly structured communities of practice and improved classroom teaching for their
students. TPEG teachers have positive views about the extent to which TPEG provided
them with a process for continual PD, increased the variety of pedagogical methods used
and their overall effectiveness, and increased student learning. There are significant
differences by school level, with elementary school teachers finding that the process was
more beneficial. However, better alignment of curriculum content and pedagogically
addressing the diverse learning needs of students remain as top concerns.
The TPEG approach challenges school leaders to take on the responsibilities of helping
teachers make their practice public, sharable, and better – three critical objectives in the
shift to develop the profession of teaching. The indication of TPEG model’s positive impact
on strengthening the features of communities of practice in selected public schools provides
the impetus for further efforts in understanding the transformational changes needed and
challenges ahead at the classroom, school, and district levels. In a recent study of Florida’s
statewide implementation of the lesson study to align state standards with the Common
Core Standards, Akiba and Wilkinson (2016) conducted an extensive mixed-method study
and found that the implementation of lesson study model was limited to shortened and
JEA simplified versions, and hampered by the lack of systemic capacity building for key
55,5 stakeholders to understand the importance of integrating the new model with the existing
organizational structures and routines of teacher professional development.
Will TPEG live on without grant-funded technical assistance? Through surveys,
interviews, and focus groups, ongoing efforts are being made to track both challenges and
necessary enabling conditions in the pilot schools’ continuous effort to sustain this new form
546 of teacher collaboration. Our study echoes the call that improving instructional effectiveness
involves system-wide community building. Our next steps involve working with state and
district administrators to deepen the understanding of the TPEG model by participating
teachers for personalized learning; fine-tuning instruments, templates, and other necessary
tools for the TPEG work as important building blocks; charting pathways to identifying,
supporting, and growing teaching experts who will take the leadership in peer learning; and
building structural alignment that aims at “re-culturing” professional development,
coaching, evaluation, and allocation of resources for the effective transfer of practitioner
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Note
1. This scale included teachers’ level of agreement (i.e., “strongly disagree” ¼ 1, “disagree” ¼ 2,
“agree” ¼ 3, “strongly agree” ¼ 4) with the following items: teachers had influence over what goes
on at school (mean 2.68); my principal respected teachers in this school (mean 3.20); my principal
had confidence in the expertise of teachers (mean 3.22); I felt comfortable going to the principal w/
questions (mean 3.17); my principal could be counted on to help teachers (mean 3.19); it was okay in
this school to discuss feelings, etc. w/principal (mean 3.03); my principal took interest in PD of
teachers (mean 3.25); and my principal makes the school run smoothly (mean 3.22).
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Appendix
550 (1) Factor 1 – instruction-focused collaboration:
• How often teaches collaborate on: key ideas in a particular lesson or unit.
• How often teaches collaborate on: possible ways in which students can solve a
particular problem.
• How often teaches collaborate on: student difficulty.
• How often teaches collaborate on: joint lesson planning.
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Corresponding author
Xiu Cravens can be contacted at: xiu.cravens@vanderbilt.edu
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