Editorial Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 97 Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Article Librarian-Teacher Partnerships for Inquiry Learning: Measures of Effectiveness for a Practice-Based Model of Professional Development Joyce Yukawa Assistant Professor Graduate Program, Library and Information Science, College of St. Catherine St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America E-mail: jyukawa@stkate.edu Violet H. Harada Professor Library and Information Science Program, University of Hawaii Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America E-mail: vharada@hawaii.edu Received: 01 January 2009 Accepted: 18 March 2009 © 2009 Yukawa and Harada. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Objective – This study analyzed the effects of a practice-based model of professional development on the teaching and collaborative practices of 9 teams of librarians and teachers, who created and implemented units of inquiry-focused study with K-12 students during a yearlong course. The authors describe how the collection and analysis of evidence guided the development team in the formative and summative evaluations of the outcomes of the professional development, as well as the long-term results of participation in this initiative. Methods – The authors used an interpretive, participative approach. The first author was the external reviewer for the project; the second author headed the development team and served as a participant-observer. Triangulated data were collected from participants in the form of learning logs, discussion board postings, interviews, questionnaires, and learning portfolios consisting of unit and lesson plans and student work samples with critiques. Data were also collected from the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 98 professional development designers in the form of meeting notes, responses to participants, interviews, and course documents. For two years following the end of the formal course, the authors also conducted follow-up email correspondence with all teams and site visits with six teams to determine sustained or expanded implementation of inquiry-focused, collaborative curriculum development. Results – The practice-based approach to professional development required continual modification of the course design and timely, individualized mentoring and feedback, based on analysis and co-reflection by the developers on the evidence gathered through participant logs, reports, and school site visits. Modeling the inquiry process in their own course development work and making this process transparent to the participating community were essential to improvement. Course participants reported beneficial results in both immediate and long-term changes in practice. The summative evaluation identified significant changes in practice in three areas: (1) the design of inquiry-focused learning, (2) the roles of the teacher and librarian in collaborative development of instruction, and (3) the impact on student performance. Two years after the yearlong professional development course, most participants indicated that they continued to incorporate inquiry-based approaches, and over half of the participants were involving other colleagues at their schools in inquiry-focused practices. Six of the librarians assumed major curricular roles in their respective schools. Conclusion – The practice-based model of professional development appears to be effective and sustainable. It has been tested and modified by other development teams in the last two years. More extensive use of the model in other contexts with further testing and refinement by other developers is needed to ensure that the model is robust and widely applicable. Introduction Professional development alternatives in Hawaii have historically been restricted to ineffective, short-term workshops delivered away from actual school sites. Moreover, these workshops have traditionally focused on the classroom and ignored the potential of collaborative teacher and librarian teaming on instruction. The purpose of this study was to refine a practice-based model of professional development and investigate its effectiveness through formative and summative assessments of a yearlong course for teams of librarians and teachers collaborating on curriculum development at their schools. Our past experiences and those of others (e.g., Marzano 66) have shown that typical approaches to professional development, such as one-day workshops and formal courses without opportunities to test strategies learned, are insufficient to affect significant changes in practice. Our goal was to refine, implement, and disseminate a practice-based model for more effective professional development through librarian-teacher collaboration. We describe how the collection and analysis of evidence guided the development team toward ensuring that learning outcomes were achieved. Modeling the inquiry process in their own course development work and making this process transparent to the participating community were essential to improvement. We present our experiences with the aim of encouraging Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 99 further testing and refinement by other developers in other contexts to ensure that the model is robust and widely applicable. Literature Review Professional development programs are systematic efforts to bring about change in teaching practices. High quality professional development is a central component in nearly every current proposal for improving education (Guskey 381). Though initiatives vary widely in their content and format, the desired outcome is student learning. Researchers have increasingly focused on what makes professional development effective, exploring the complex links between the design of professional development, teachers’ learning during planned activities, and subsequent changes in classroom practice (Penuel et al. 923; Sato, Wei, and Darling-Hammond 669). The view of the learning process that emerges across different theories of adult learning is a constructivist perspective with the following propositions (Smylie 94). First, adults enter learning situations with accumulated knowledge, skills, and beliefs from past experiences. These may affect current learning by serving as cognitive and normative schemata through which individuals perceive and interpret their situations, new information, and themselves as learners. Second, adult learning is problem-oriented and occurs when problems relate in meaningful ways to life situations. Third, adults play an active role in their own learning and are not merely passive recipients of information. Reflective practice occupies a position at the confluence of a number of ways of knowing for adult learners (Ghaye and Ghaye 18). A reflective educator is one who ‚is committed to continuous improvement in practice; assumes responsibility for his or her own learning; demonstrates awareness of self, others, and the surrounding context; develops the thinking skills for effective inquiry; and takes action that aligns with new understandings‛ (York-Barr et al. 10). Social constructivism also contributes to the foundation upon which current professional development is shaped. Fenwick and Tennant define adult learning as engaging in changing processes of human participation in a particular community of practice (62-63). A community of practice is any group of individuals who work together over time developing particular ways of doing things and talking about things that their members come to learn. Wenger declares that individuals learn as they participate by interacting with the community (its history, assumptions, rules and patterns of relationship), the tools at hand, and the moment’s activity (11-15). A practice-based approach that embraces reflective practice offers a potentially effective means to achieve professional growth. The practice-based approach to in- service training (Ball and Cohen 3-32) uses authentic records and tools for teaching and learning to create a common ground for individuals and teams to work, jointly reflect, explore alternatives, and support each other. The curriculum centers on the tasks, questions, and problems faced in ongoing efforts to design units of instruction and strategies for assessing student learning. This approach recognizes that curriculum reform involves just-in-time, situated learning and acknowledges that the processes of teaching and learning are ambiguous, complicated, and nonlinear. Instead of definitive answers and preordained solutions, participants focus on possibilities, methods of reasoning, and alternative conjectures as they learn from one another (Yukawa, Harada, and Suthers 181). The consensus view posited by teacher Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 100 learning researchers is that effective professional development should be designed to develop teachers’ capacity to work collectively on problems of practice within their own schools and with practitioners in other settings, as much as to support the knowledge and skill development in individual educators (Elmore 96). Key features identified in a review of the literature included the following: A well-articulated mission or purpose anchored in student learning and derived from analysis of student learning of specific content in a specific setting Connection with issues of instruction and student learning of academic disciplines and skills in actual classrooms Development and maintenance of collaborative practice within schools and across schools Focus over time with the use of assessment and evaluation for continuous improvements Timely supports for and feedback on teacher learning and practice (Borko and Putnam 38-51; Elmore 96; Nesbit, Leach, and Foley 85-90) In this article, we will describe design principles used in a yearlong practice-based professional development course, the specific objectives and interventions employed, and information on the development team and participants. Design of the Professional Development Course The professional development (PD) course, entitled ‚Building Inquiry Partnerships,‛ employed a practice-based approach that was founded on principles of constructivist and adult learning, and was structured to support participants as they designed and implemented units of inquiry-focused study for K-12 students. Development Team The course development team consisted of three persons with dual roles as designers and learning facilitators/mentors. The lead designer and senior mentor was a professor in an LIS program with extensive experience teaching and facilitating workshops. A second senior mentor was a retired library media specialist, experienced practitioner, and skilled facilitator. The third mentor was a staff member of the state’s School Library Services Branch, skilled in the use of technology for learning. In addition, an external researcher attended all planning meetings and collected and analyzed data, as described more fully below. The external reviewer and the lead designer served as the investigators for this study. The Population Nine teacher-librarian teams from K-12 schools (a total of 21 female participants) were the focus of this study. There were four elementary school teams, one intermediate school team (with one librarian and two teachers), and four high school teams (one with two librarians and one teacher, and another with one librarian and two teachers). The team members had a wide range of school level experience, from a librarian in her second year of service to teachers nearing retirement. Some teams had prior collaboration experiences, while others were collaborating for the first time. The teams were formed at the beginning of the PD course, when 10 librarians brought teacher partners with them at the start of the course in June 2005. Participants in the PD course not included in this study were three librarians who began the course alone but later secured partners after the school year started. Their teacher partners did not participate in the PD course. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 101 Design Principles The general design principles for the course were as follows (see also Figure 1): Embrace reflective practice for continuous improvement through awareness, deep thinking, and action that aligns with new understandings. Incorporate authentic records and tools for teaching and learning that center on tasks, questions, and problems situated in practice. Support a community of practice that provides common ground for work, collaboration, exploration, co-reflection, and mutual support. Connect to patterns of practice in context, building from knowledge, skills, and beliefs from past experiences to develop effective practices in one’s classroom, school, and with other practitioners. Promote formative and summative assessment in a continuous cycle of evidence-based practice. PD Learning Outcomes The designers identified the following desired outcomes for participants: Fig. 1. Practice-Based PD Model Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 102 Design an inquiry-based unit that connects to content standards and information literacy standards. Determine essential questions through focusing on a generative theme and transforming standards into learning objectives. Foster the inquiry process through student performance tasks that measure the learning goals and strategies that motivate curiosity, call for higher-level thinking, and support problem investigation. Achieve assessment-driven decision making through collecting formative and summative assessment data and analyzing the data to inform instruction. These desired outcomes were specified as ten PD learning outcomes in the course syllabus (see also Figure 1): 1. Focus on a generative theme or problem. 2. Identify one or more essential questions that drive the project. 3. Transform standards into clearly stated learning criteria. 4. Define performance tasks that clearly measure the learning goals. 5. Incorporate strategies that motivate student curiosity. 6. Incorporate strategies, which challenge students to generate higher level questions. 7. Incorporate strategies that help students investigate their theme or problem effectively and efficiently. 8. Incorporate tasks that assist students in creating personal knowledge from collected information and data. 9. Require final products that challenge students to effectively communicate their knowledge. 10. Integrate opportunities for students to (a) assess students’ own progress throughout their work, and (b) evaluate their final products. Scaffolding Strategies, Support Structures and Tools Scaffolding strategies, support structures, and tools were designed to promote and embody the design principles. The major strategies used by mentors to scaffold learning of new concepts and practices were as follows (see also Figure 1): 1. Engage the learner: tap prior knowledge, encourage questions. 2. Introduce new learning: connect new concepts or skills to prior knowledge, demonstrate and model new concepts or skills. 3. Provide for application and transfer: guide practice, provide timely feedback. 4. Allow for independent practice: focus on site-based, work-embedded implementation of new learning. 5. Promote interaction: encourage collaborative curriculum planning, cross-school dialogue, sharing of products. 6. Provide continuous mentoring: encourage participation, show interest in progress, respond positively to inquiries, provide helpful feedback, extend the inquiry in key directions. 7. Build critical reflection and co- reflection: engage in ongoing assessment of progress and reflection on planning and implementation experiences. The support structure consisted of face-to- face meetings and ongoing online dialogue. In June 2005, the course began with a three- day, face-to-face summer institute that was a critical engagement activity. The institute modeled an inquiry approach by challenging participants to think deeply about the following types of questions: Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 103 What is worth learning? How do we guide students for this learning to occur? How might students demonstrate their learning? How do we know if this understanding has occurred? The mentors introduced the key concepts: (1) determining essential questions, (2) fostering the inquiry process, and (3) assessment-driven decision making. Teams engaged in intra- and inter-team discussions to share and reflect on their past experiences, thus connecting prior teaching activity with the key concepts. The teams also began the work of collaborative curriculum planning. The mentors introduced a general process for designing and implementing a unit, supported by monthly individual and team reflections and yearlong mentoring. Each team was assigned a buddy team with whom to co- reflect throughout the year. The teacher-librarian teams continued curriculum development and implementation on site. Two other face-to- face activities were a midpoint reunion and team presentations at an annual educational conference. The January 2006 midpoint reunion, which was also offered via videoconferencing, celebrated lessons learned, and identified areas of strength and areas for additional support. A critical component of the reunion was to revisit assessment issues. By this time, participants had started collecting assessment data and wanted more guidance in interpreting the results and brainstorming how best to use the findings in refining instruction. The designers invited participants to serve as critical friends to one another. In pairs, they shared their work and suggested ways to interpret the data and strategies for improving instruction. The designers also contributed to the discussion. In their reflections at the end of the day, many participants cited the benefits of collaboratively thinking about and discussing the complexities of assessment. One participant noted, ‚Assessment IS reflective learning.‛ The other major face-to-face event involved the teams presenting their units in progress at the February 2006 E Conference, an annual educational conference sponsored by the state department of education. Approximately a thousand teachers, school support personnel, and administrators as well as university faculty attended this conference. Our teams were clustered in hour-long panels with each team given 10 to 15 minutes to share major learning goals, assessment strategies, collaborative teaching strategies, and student performances. Two teams brought along students to talk about their learning experiences. The overwhelmingly positive responses they received from attendees served as a tremendous morale booster. One participant told the developers: I was very nervous about speaking for the first time at a state conference but what an experience! I had people coming up to me after the presentation to say how impressed they were with the team’s collaborative planning and the results we were getting from the students’ science investigations. I felt truly empowered. In addition to the face-to-face activities, the designers established an online support structure: (1) monthly individual reflection logs via email, (2) monthly team reports posted in workspaces on a university website , and (3) buddy responses in the workspaces to the monthly reports from other teams. The mentors also engaged in continuous online mentoring in hnlc.org and via email. The scaffolding tools included two texts written by the senior mentors that the teams used to help them integrate new concepts http://www.hnlc.org Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 104 and to guide their work. Participants were also provided with templates for the unit and lesson plans, a checklist for a generative topic, and a performance task template. Supported by these strategies, structures, and tools, teams engaged in collaborative planning and implementation in situated learning through practice. The culminating product was a learning portfolio that included evidence of an inquiry-based unit and assessment-driven decision making (unit and lesson plans, rubrics, concept maps, worksheets, student self-assessment tools, formative and summative assessment tools, student work samples with teacher and librarian commentary at different levels of proficiency) and evidence of reflective practice (cumulative team reports, individual logs, and final reflections). Methods of Evidence Collection and Analysis The authors coordinated the collection and analysis of data for this study. The first author was the external reviewer for the project; the second author headed the development team and served as a participant-observer. Findings were validated through data triangulation. For evidence of the design team’s work, the investigators collected minutes of planning and debriefing meetings, course agendas, and session plans. In addition, the external reviewer conducted interviews with each member of the design team. For evidence of participant practice, from June 2005 to May 2006, data were collected from individual reflection logs, monthly team reports and buddy responses, and final learning portfolios. A pre- and post-course questionnaire was administered to ascertain participants’ self-perceived gains on the ten PD learning outcomes (see Table 1). Five teams (11 participants) were selected for in- depth, two-hour interviews from March- May 2006, using open-ended questions to stimulate discussion (see Appendix A). In addition, a questionnaire was administered in May 2006 to the 13 participants who were not interviewed (see Tables 2 and 3). To examine longitudinal work beyond the year of the formal professional development, the investigators collected email responses from the teams in the second and third years (from 2006 through 2008) as well as anecdotal records on follow- up visits with six of the teams. Data were coded for elements of the PD model, practice-based design principles, course components, interaction structure, and characteristics of the learning and collaboration processes specific to each participant and team. Coder reliability was achieved by conducting member checks in the follow-up interviews. In the following five sections, we elaborate on the foci of the investigation: (1) the use of evidence-based practice to guide the formative development of the course, (2) the summative evaluation of changes in inquiry-focused teaching practices among the participants, (3) the implementation of course design principles, (4) use of technology, and (5) evidence of sustained and expanded practice. Evidence Based Course Implementation Beyond attending the summer institute and the midpoint reunion, the participants posted over 500 messages during the eight months of the course. The development team met face-to-face at least once a month for approximately three hours and kept in continual contact by email to review the evidence and determine if the strategies, support structures, and tools were achieving the desired outcomes of the course. Design modifications were made throughout implementation to better achieve the Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 105 objectives. Evidence of the design team’s work and participant practice were examined to document this iterative course design process. The following examples of the process are organized around several key PD learning outcomes for the participants. Identifying a Generative Theme and Developing Essential Questions The first day of the summer institute focused on major elements of an inquiry- focused approach. A key point was identifying a generative theme that is central to a discipline, invites student curiosity, is age-appropriate, offers opportunities for connections to students’ previous experiences, and leads to deeper investigation (Perkins 93-95). Reviewing the participant feedback, the development team realized that most participants were uncertain about how to develop generative themes. They revised the second day’s agenda to begin with discussing the differences between topics and generative themes and brainstorming strategies for developing generative themes. Promoting Student Self-Assessment From the start, participants acknowledged needing help with assessment. While all had conducted summative evaluations to analyze students’ final products, they were novices at formative assessments that involved student self-assessment. Although these topics were addressed in the summer institute, the September team reports and logs indicated that this was an ongoing challenge. In response, the developers established an assessment helpline on the course website. They posted the first questions as identified from the reports and logs and welcomed input. While not everyone responded in the helpline discussion, participants viewed the discussion and shared in their subsequent logs and reports a range of assessment strategies including semantic webs, observation and performance checklists, rating scales, and rubrics. Getting students to practice self-assessment was a challenge most teams had not faced before. The developers encouraged the use of ‚I can‛ statements with younger students and focused prompts for logs with older students. A number of teams subsequently used both strategies. One team videotaped their students as they rehearsed their oral presentations and encouraged self and peer critiquing of the videotapes. In addition, the developers redesigned the midpoint reunion in January to allow for hands-on time with assessment. Participants brought drafts of their units and lessons and traded critiques on assessment strategies and tools. As noted in their subsequent logs, this helped teams adjust their teaching based on ongoing assessment of student performance. Defining Performance Tasks to Measure Learning Goals In early fall, several teams indicated that the plans for their inquiry projects were more complex than originally anticipated and requested additional consultations. In response, the developers conducted site visits with two high school teams. For one, re-examining the expectations for a history day project led to identifying more precise benchmarks for key tasks and devising checklists to allow students to more clearly see the sequence of assignments and associated deadlines. For the other team engaged in capstone projects, discussing how to incorporate quality service learning experiences resulted in the articulation of clearer expectations for both students and community mentors. In both cases, this individualized mentoring helped the teams Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 106 to scaffold and scale the projects through more careful examination of students’ prior knowledge and the skills needed to execute the tasks. Lessons Learned As the developers read through the monthly reports and the logs, they realized anew the importance of the discourse occurring not only between developers and participants but also among the participants. They encouraged participants to look beyond their buddy teams to other team reports for more cross fertilization of ideas. They modeled the reflection process by sharing their collective reflections on the work being done across teams. Each month, they posted a co-reflection on the major themes and topics evidenced in the current logs and reports, shared proposed action steps, posed more questions, and invited comments. These strategies resulted in critical exchanges among participants. An elementary team that had successfully used buddy pairing between 5th and 2nd grade students for note taking activities connected with another elementary team exploring grouping strategies for a multiage classroom to develop guidelines for cross-age pairings. In another example, two high school groups working on project-based learning posed critical questions for one another such as: How will the data collected from the research skills pretest help you to map out future lessons and activities? What skills will you assess? How do you sustain motivation in projects of this duration? What lessons were the developers learning? A practice-based approach to professional development required timely, individualized mentoring and feedback, based on careful analysis of the content and tone of online discourse and active listening during site visits and face-to-face meetings. Collaborating as a development team necessitated co-reflecting on qualitative data being gathered through the logs, reports, and visits and using that evidence to work on modifications and introduce new interventions. In short, the developers discovered that modeling the inquiry process in their own course development work and making this process transparent to the participating community were essential to improvement. Summative Evaluation of Course Outcomes At the conclusion of the PD course, a summative evaluation was conducted to ascertain changes in inquiry-focused teaching practices among the participants. Data were collected through two questionnaires and in-depth interviews with five teams (11 participants), using open- ended questions (see Appendix A). Questionnaire 1 was administered to all participants at three points in time: prior to the June 2005 summer institute, after the institute, and in March 2006. The questions addressed self-perceived gains on the ten PD learning outcomes (see Table 1). Questionnaire 2 was administered in May 2006 to participants who were not interviewed to ascertain any changes in inquiry teaching values (see Table 2). Additional data were collected through examinations of individual logs, team reports, and final portfolios (especially unit plans and critiqued student work samples). Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 107 Table 1: Questionnaire 1 – Self-Perceived Gains in Knowledge and Ability Rating Scale: 1 = I have limited or no knowledge about this. 2 = I know a little more about this but am not comfortable about applying this. 3 = I feel more comfortable about apply this. 4 = I feel quite comfortable about my knowledge and ability to apply this. Key: Shaded cells indicate gains over previous self- ratings Pre-Institute Post-Institute End of Course N=25* N=25* N=20 I am able to … 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1. Identify a theme or a problem that serves as a generative focus for study. 7 8 9 1 0 1 11 13 0 0 9 11 Percent of Total 28 32 36 4 0 4 44 52 0 0 45 55 2. Develop one or more essential questions that relate to the theme or problem. 5 12 7 1 0 0 14 11 0 0 10 10 Percent of Total 20 48 28 4 0 0 56 44 0 0 50 50 3. Transform standards into clearly stated criteria that demonstrate what is learned and how it is learned. 4 10 11 0 0 0 16 9 0 0 11 9 Percent of Total 16 40 44 0 0 0 64 36 0 0 55 45 4. Create a performance task that measures achievement of learning goals. 6 9 10 0 0 1 14 10 0 0 14 6 Percent of Total 24 36 40 0 0 4 56 40 0 0 70 30 5. Incorporate strategies that motivate student curiosity and interest. 3 10 12 0 0 1 15 9 0 1 14 5 Percent of Total 12 40 48 0 0 4 60 36 0 5 70 25 6. Incorporate strategies that encourage students to generate higher-level questions. 4 13 8 0 0 1 14 10 0 1 14 5 Percent of Total 16 52 32 0 0 4 56 40 0 5 70 25 7. Incorporate strategies that help students investigate their theme or problem effectively and efficiently. 4 15 6 0 0 0 17 8 0 1 12 7 Percent of Total 16 60 24 0 0 0 68 32 0 5 60 35 8. Design tasks that assist students in creating personal knowledge from collected information and data. 3 16 6 0 0 2 15 8 0 0 15 5 Percent of Total 12 64 24 0 0 8 60 32 0 0 75 25 9. Develop final products that challenge students to effectively communicate their knowledge. 3 13 9 0 0 0 15 10 0 0 14 6 Percent of Total 12 52 36 0 0 0 60 40 0 0 70 30 10. Integrate opportunities for students to (a) assess students’ own progress throughout their work, and (b) evaluate their final products. 4 13 8 0 0 0 16 9 0 0 16 4 Percent of Total 16 52 32 0 0 0 64 36 0 0 70 30 * One teacher withdrew from the course, leaving 24 participants who completed. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 108 Table 2: Questionnaire 2 – Changes in Values of an Inquiry-Focused Approach Post-Course Change-in-Importance Indicators: - = Decreased in importance; 0 = No Change; + = Increased in importance N = 7. Note: not all questions answered by every respondent Indicators for an inquiry-focused class or library—the students . . . Post-Course Change - 0 + Exhibit curiosity, ask meaningful questions. 0 1 6 Collect and evaluate information. 0 1 6 Actively engage in hands-on tasks and learning by doing. 0 2 5 Express their ideas in a variety of ways (e.g., writing, graphing, mind mapping). 0 2 5 Use performance indicators to assess their own work and/or critique their peer’s work. 0 3 4 Exercise responsible and ethical use of resources and equipment. 0 3 4 Remain on task. 0 3 4 Articulate what they were doing and why they were doing it. 0 2 4 Reflect on their strengths and weaknesses. 0 2 4 Demonstrate performance of higher order thinking (e.g., comparing and contrasting, synthesizing, detecting patterns). 0 4 3 The findings are presented in three sections below: (1) Design of Inquiry-Focused Learning, (2) Roles of the Teacher and Librarian in Collaborative Development of Instruction, and (3) Impact on Student Performance. Design of Inquiry-Focused Learning In interview and questionnaire responses, participants indicated changes in a range of areas, but particularly stressed inquiry learning, essential questions, and data- driven assessment. In the interviews, all five teams discussed how they have achieved a better understanding of inquiry learning. As a middle school teacher new to her subject noted, ‚Inquiry < really opened my eyes. It helped me work with the standards and break them down. I never worked with essential questions before.‛ For mature partnerships, participation in the course led to deeper conversations about the nature of inquiry learning: ‚Our big aha had to do with the inquiry unit plan. We addressed the essential questions as part of the background building, and the students’ own questions as the inquiry.‛ Four of the five teams discussed the importance of essential questions. One middle school teacher clearly described the influence of the PD course on her understanding: ‚When we did our unit plans, we got students to do to their activities based on essential questions. Our curriculum coordinator said, ‘This is what I’ve been telling you.’ It didn’t make sense until I took this class.‛ Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 109 Four of the five teams discussed the value of data-driven assessment. One new high school librarian using pre- and post- assessment measures for the first time noted, ‚It gives us targets that we need to address, because we’re measuring how much learning it’s going to take. It helped me be more conscious of what was going on, of what we were doing and why we were doing it.‛ Responses to Questionnaire 1 (Table 1) showed that self-perceived gains at the end of the course compared to those after the summer institute were highest in four areas: (1) identify a generative theme (from 52% to 55%); (2) develop essential questions (from 44% to 50%); (3) transform standards (from 36% to 45%); and (4) incorporate strategies for problem investigation (from 32% to 35%). For Questionnaire 2, nearly all respondents indicated that they valued essential questions and data-driven assessment more highly at the end of the course: (1) ‚exhibit curiosity, ask meaningful questions‛ (6 of 7 respondents), and (2) ‚collect and evaluate information‛ (6 of 7 respondents) (see Table 2). In addition, the individual logs for December/January indicated these changes in teaching practice due to an inquiry focus: (1) essential questions as the focus for student learning; (2) student-centered learning and independent inquiry; (3) data- driven decision making; (4) student self- assessment; (5) challenging students to achieve higher level thinking and problem solving; (6) more thoughtful planning; (7) designing units that are connected to the real world and relevant to students’ lives; and (8) more carefully incorporating standards. Roles of the Teacher and Librarian in Collaborative Development of Instruction One of the features of the PD course that had the greatest impact on teaching practices was the partnership between teachers and librarians. The value of partnering was one of the topics most often included in additional comments to Questionnaire 1, and five of seven respondents to Questionnaire 2 rated it ‚most helpful‛ for their learning. Individual logs and interview data provided indicators of the roles of the teacher and librarian in the collaborative development of instruction. Participants characterized the relationship as a partnership of equals, with teachers providing subject expertise and intimate knowledge of their students and librarians providing information literacy expertise, knowledge of resources, technology expertise, and guidance to students through the conceptual and emotional challenges of the research process. Participants appreciated using each other as sounding boards in deepening conversations about unit and lesson planning, standards, essential questions, assessment tools, and information literacy instruction. A key change in roles was the degree to which librarians were integral to the entire process of planning, implementation, and assessment, with joint responsibility and accountability. A valuable theme was the way the partnerships extended to other faculty at the school. Impact on Student Performance The developers examined the contents of the participants’ culminating portfolios to study the impact of the professional development on teaching practices. In particular, they analyzed the units of study and student work samples for indicators of influence on student learning and performance. Here we Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 110 provide several examples from different grade levels as suggestive of the impact on student performance that many participants observed. Elementary School An elementary school librarian and a second grade teacher collaborated on and co-taught a yearlong unit on human migration, focusing on three essential questions: Why do people move? How do people feel when they are moving? How do people acclimate? The lessons involved guidance on note taking, self-assessment of writing, self- assessment of information literacy, conducting interviews, data interpretation and evaluation, and cross-age tutoring by fifth graders. The individual logs and team reports documented the step-by-step process of planning, revising, implementing, and again revising based on evidence of student learning and student self- assessments. The team was particularly successful in using assessment data to scaffold and adapt learning tools. For example, they originally devised an ‚idea tree‛ for students to map the major concepts in their research. However, they discovered that use of the tree required that students have mastery of other critical sub-skills (e.g., taking notes of key ideas, webbing to connect these ideas with one another, transforming key words and phrases into meaningful sentences). This led the team to scaffold the learning experience by focusing on each of these sub-skills. In the final interview, both members of the partnership expressed a high degree of satisfaction with student learning and performance due to the course. According to the teacher partner: Working together with my librarian partner, I’ve spiraled my kids far above the 2nd grade level standards. The students had to conduct an interview for the first time, applying their note taking skills. They had to organize their notes into a paragraph. They analyzed their results – they had to count, graph, and interpret their data. Each student will complete a brochure, and the brochure will go to the new students and families coming into our community, so it has a practical focus. They do self- evaluation using checklists and revise their work using the checklists. A gifted and talented student that was out of focus is thriving on this experience, also the special education kids, just because we’re touching so many multiple intelligences through interviewing, writing, oral presentation. This unit has so much content in so many different areas. Students don’t get that in our normal curriculum, which is scripted reading, scripted math, scripted social studies, scripted science. This was a regular second grade class at an average school. But this project is so different from our regular curriculum and offers so many skills and opportunities to apply those skills that the kids just thrived on it. Middle School A special education (SPED) teacher and her school librarian focused on a semester-long unit of study on Polynesian migration. Prior to this collaborative venture, the SPED teacher indicated that she had used a ‚lot of paper and pencil worksheets‛ and ‚drill exercises‛ with her students. During the institute, the team began to explore alternative experiences for SPED students and decided on having the students create first person narratives on a simulated voyage from Tahiti to Hawaii. To gain the necessary background knowledge, the Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2009, 4:2 111 students visited cultural centers and museums and combed through print and online resources with assistance from the teacher, librarian, and aides in the classroom. Throughout the process, students worked on a group KWHL chart that served as a critical assessment tool documenting what they knew, what they wanted to learn, how they might find information, and what they had learned. Beyond the disciplinary content, an important objective for this unit was to help SPED students overcome a ‚learned helplessness.‛ As the teacher noted in a log: ‚These kids know they are SPED kids and because we [teachers] expect so little from them, they also come to expect little of themselves. It is so heartbreaking and frustrating to see this. I wanted to do something that might raise the bar of learning.‛ The teacher and librarian worked with the students individually and collectively in helping them prepare their simple first person narratives. The students also created facsimiles of artifacts the Polynesian travelers might have taken along on the voyages (e.g., baskets, rope, fishing equipment). Finally, the students videotaped their presentations and shared their final products with their parents. In a culminating reflection, the teacher and librarian stated: ‚This has been a difficult but most exhilarating experience. Our students have stepped outside their comfort zone to experience what inquiry learning is about.‛ The following snapshot from the same team report captures one student’s achievement: David [pseudonym] is very disruptive < does no homework or classwork < has many office referrals and suspensions. In this unit, he has been very involved < he created a star chamber to show how the navigators used the stars to travel. He struggled with his story and his penmanship was almost unreadable. So he used Alpha Smart and was motivated to keep going. His final story was exciting and funny < and he was so proud. High School A chemistry teacher collaborated with her school librarian to ‚make over‛ a unit of study on the chemical properties of matter. In previous years, she had required students to produce papers on different lab experiments and found that her students were largely unmotivated and copying from their friends’ work. The teacher and librarian decided to revamp the unit by incorporating a real-world application in it. They challenged the students to (1) explore the chemistry behind everyday objects, and (2) explain how these objects improved the quality of their lives. They designed the instruction to tap into students’ prior knowledge, broaden their exposure to the topic, assess progress at important checkpoints, and provide for continuous reflection and feedback. To guide students through the inquiry process, the team created a checklist that required students to regulate and assess their own progress and to reflect in writing about what they were learning and how they were learning it. Students ultimately shared their findings in slide presentations before audiences of their peers and invited community guests. A critical component in the overall learning experience was the students’ ability to describe their growth as researchers. The following examples from different students’ logs submitted throughout the project reflected their grasp of the essential features of inquiry: Effective search queries: ‚I have grown into a better researcher