Abstracts - Earli

In order to implement new curricula, sustainable changes in instruction are necessary.Conventional methods of professional development, such as short workshops and seminars,however, produce no lasting effects. In this study, the concept of instruction monitoring isintroduced as a new approach towards instructional development. The concept centres around acontent-focused quality circle, in which teachers co-operate over one school year and discussvideotapes of their own lessons. The videos are to activate reflection: unconscious patterns ofaction can be noticed and attended to. This occurs in the form of collegial feedback withinmonthly group meetings. During the 2004/05 school year, fourteen mathematics teachers fromBerlin schools participated in two quality circles. A further eight formed the control group whoattended traditional professional development during the same period. The co-operation was aimedat implementing a new mathematics curriculum. Within a quasi-experimental pre-post test design,questionnaires were used for estimating the average effects of instruction monitoring comparedwith traditional professional development at teacher as well as student level. The average effects atteacher level were tested non-parametrically with u-tests. Owing to the larger sample size, effectsat student level were examined with ANCOVA, using the pre-test score as the covariate. Theresults indicate a change in various aspects of instruction with respect to criteria required by thenew curriculum (for example, the introduction of problem-based learning), as well as a shift inteachers’ beliefs towards a cognitive constructivist orientation. At student level, an increase inself-assessed subject competence is observed. The results speak for the increased use of qualitycircles as a method for effective professional development.Effects of a program to teach self-regulated use of reading strategies: A 2-year follow-upElmar Souvignier, University of Frankfurt/Main, GermanyIsabel Trenk-Hinterberger, University of Frankfurt/Main, GermanyTeaching reading strategies is a promising attempt to foster reading comprehension. During thelast 20 years several instructional programs have been implemented successfully into regularclassroom settings and in most of the studies children’s knowledge of reading strategies andachievement in reading comprehension increased. However, long-term effects of strategy-orientedreading programs have been evaluated very rarely. The aim of our study was to analyse, if astrategy-oriented program would bring about long-lasting effects over the period of two schoolyears. Eight fifth grade classrooms with 207 students participated in the study. The readingstrategy program "Becoming a text-detective" which consists of 25 reading lessons wasadministered to six classes during the first half of the grade five school year. The other two classesserved as the control group. Pre- and posttest data were collected immediately before and after theprogram. Retention tests were run at the end of the sixth grade school year. Competence inunderstanding the use of reading strategies, reading comprehension, and self-efficacy related toreading were assessed. Additionally, teachers completed a questionnaire concerning further use ofstrategy-oriented reading instruction. With respect to all three criteria, the text-detective groupshowed significantly higher long-term gains than did the control group. Effect-sizes varied fromd=.31 (self-efficacy) over d=.37 (strategy knowledge) to d=.46 (reading comprehension). Shortterm effects turned out to be quite comparable to the retention effects, underlining the highstability of gains in the treatment group. Teachers declared that they were going to continueteaching reading strategies and that they would use the program again. The results underline thatteaching reading strategies offers a high impact on the development of reading competence. Anecessary condition for this result may have been that teachers were convinced by the program andstated to make further use of the programs’ principles.– 442 –