MyTeachingPartner: A Professional Development Intervention for Teacher Self-Efficacy

MyTeachingPartner (MTP) is an interactive, web-based professional development format created at the Center for Advanced Studies in Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at the University of Virginia (Hadden & Pianta, 2006). The MTP model is based on the understanding that effective teacher professional development requires opportunities for teachers to watch high quality teaching and receive regular feedback on their own teaching practice (Pianta, Mashburn, et al., 2008). The MTP model includes many of the above identified sources of self-efficacy, and its components map on to Bandura's sources of self-efficacy. For example, the consultancy allows teachers to practice teaching in a supportive environment, moving them to greater levels of mastery. They collaboratively evaluate their teaching practice with the feedback from a qualified consultant, and gain a greater sense of control over their own outcomes, therefore reducing negative arousal, and increasing positive emotional cues. The video exemplars of high quality teaching, to which consultants often refer teachers, can serve as efficacy-enhancing vicarious experiences. In the context of an intervention study aimed at improving teacher-child interactions through the use of the MTP consultancy, the authors positioned the present study as an attempt to test the efficacy of MTP as a professional development approach for targeting teacher self-efficacy. Specifically, this study examines the extent to which treatment assignment relates to teacher self-efficacy in the domains of classroom management, student engagement, and instructional strategies. (Contains 3 tables.)