Linda Davis

Date of Award

12-26-2007

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Angela Koppang

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to gain educators' perspectives of the value of a professional development program designed for practicing middle school teachers, many who had not been prepared for teaching in the middle school. The intent was to determine if participation in the Tri-City Middle Level Institute contributed to educators' professional growth by providing the philosophical understanding, knowledge base, and instructional strategies required to fully implement middle level concepts. Further, this study sought to establish if the design of the professional development, which employed a train-the-trainer model with collegial study groups, resulted in more teacher engagement and a higher degree of satisfaction. The Tri-City Middle Level Institute is a collaborative endeavor of three school districts to offer the required courses for North Dakota middle level. Surveys completed by 164 middle level educators employed at the middle level were examined. Descriptive statistics, chi-square significance, comparisons of means, and ANOVA were used to analyze the collected data. The findings of this study indicated a high satisfaction with Tri-City's professional development model. Five out of six statements regarding the benefits of this professional development model received over a 90% agreement, with the opportunity to network and learn from colleagues receiving the highest ranking. Secondly, this study reflected an overall agreement rate of over 85% with middle level concepts, practices, and philosophy. Teaming received the highest endorsement with a 97% agreement rate, while connect with the community rated the lowest with a 74.3% agreement rate. Thirdly, this study found little differentiation among the participants when comparing levels of licensure, years of experience, and leadership roles. The only subgroup that reported any significant differences were participants with elementary licensure. Their responses indicated a higher level of agreement with the middle level concept of connecting with the community, as well as more knowledge reading strategies and greater frequency of implementation, which may reflect their pre-service training more than the impact of the professional development. In general, all subgroups reported high levels of agreement with middle level concepts and consistent degrees of knowledge and implementation of instructional strategies.

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