Insights from WestEd’s Blended Professional Development Model

This “Insights Brief” was prepared by the U.S. Department of Education to highlight WestEd’s work as a Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grantee. The evidence-based program, Reading Apprenticeship Across the Disciplines (RAAD), is the focus of the brief in which authors describe a successful professional learning model that blends online and in-person training to support teachers in a variety of subject areas as they work to build students’ literacy skills.

This report describes the impact of Project READI science work on both teaching practices and student literacy learning. The Reading Apprenticeship team provided professional learning and text-based investigation modules for the intervention teachers and schools and conducted a multi-site efficacy trial in 9th grade biology. Teachers in the intervention group engaged in new teaching practices known to support students’ literacy and science learning, and differences between intervention and control teachers’ practices grew over the course of the study. Students who participated in the semester-long intervention of the READI approach outperformed those in business-as-usual classrooms in which the same science topics were covered, on both a project-developed assessment and on a scenario-based assessment developed by ETS.

Learn more about Project READI.