Work-based professional development for teachers, such as externships, can lead to gains for educators and students, but more research is needed.
In this Education Development Center paper, author Ilene Kantrov draws on research with CTE educators that highlights the importance of industry alignment, but indicates dissatisfaction with professional development opportunities and with the quality and ease of developing employer partnerships. Kantrov proposes that one way to tackle these issues is to encourage teachers’ participation in work-based professional development that facilitates strong relationships with employers. This can help educators better align classroom learning to industry needs, design challenging and realistic project-based learning and provide more and better work-based learning opportunities for students.
The document describes different types and intensities of work-based professional development and provides several examples in CTE and STEM fields, such as the Teachers in Business Externship Program and the Academies of Nashville Teacher Team Externships.
The paper concludes that these educator experiences seem to be valuable, based on feedback from teacher and employer participants, but more research is needed to identify what is the most effective configuration for work-based professional development.
ACTE is proud to support EDC’s work by facilitating their research with CTE educators and providing feedback on a draft of this paper.
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