Reflections on AEFP 2024

Naomi Blaushild had the opportunity to present work she completed during her postdoctoral fellowship at The Learning Partnership. Below is her reflection of the experience.

I was excited to attend and present a paper at the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) conference. I presented a study that I developed as part of my postdoctoral research fellowship at The Learning Partnership, titled “Exploring Districtwide Teacher Professional Learning Opportunities as Drivers of Culturally Responsive and Equitable Middle School Science Instruction in Chicago” (with co-authors Emma Stein and Steven McGee). This study explored how Chicago Public Schools designed, and how teachers experienced, professional learning opportunities for Skyline middle school science instruction. We found that teachers valued opportunities for active learning, collaboration, and receiving model activities and resources from facilitators. Teachers also expressed a desire for more support with adapting the Skyline curriculum to their students’ unique learning needs, backgrounds, and interests. A new PLC model developed by the CPS science team, which engages teachers in a Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle on culturally responsive practices, has the potential to fill this gap.

During the conference, I attended sessions on educator labor markets and the advantages of mixed methods research for policy and practice. One paper that I found particularly compelling was “Motivations to Enter the Teaching Profession During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Insights from Emergency License Holders in Massachusetts,” presented by Ariel Tichnor-Wagner, Andrew Bacher-Hicks, and Olivia Chi from Boston University. Their mixed methods study found that in Massachusetts during COVID-19, an emergency teacher licensing program brought in a more diverse pool of teachers, both in terms of racial/ethnic background and prior experiences. This group of teachers were also largely driven to enter teaching by intrinsic and altruistic (i.e., promoting social equity) motivations. The authors suggest that these entering teachers may have been wanting to teach for a while, and the COVID-19 context allowed them to enter more quickly on an emergency license. However, this study provides important implications about what aspects of teaching might compel more college graduates and career changers into the profession, especially in the context of teacher shortages and vacancies in high-need schools and subject areas.