Excellence in teacher learning scholarship

Laura Desimone, L. Sandra and Bruce L. Hammonds Professor in Teacher Education and director of research in University of Delaware's College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Education (NAEd), receiving one of the field's highest honors.

As a national expert in designing meaningful and effective opportunities for teacher learning, she is one of 19 national and international scholars elected to membership this year. NAEd advances high-quality education research and its use in policy and practice, and its members are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship related to education.

"Laura Desimone's induction into the National Academy of Education is well-deserved," said Rena Hallam, interim dean of CEHD. "Her research in teacher learning, school and district-wide reform and education policy has been such a valuable resource for school leaders, policymakers and colleagues in the field. Her work has helped support teachers and improve student outcomes in schools across the nation."

Excellence in teacher education scholarship

Desimone's research focuses on the role of teacher learning in state, district and school-level reforms designed to improve instruction and student learning. With more than 40,000 research citations and funding from the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), the Spencer Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Desimone guides the field with studies of coaching, mentoring, standards-based reform, literacy and STEM interventions that focus on supportive and effective teacher learning.

"Professor Desimone's work lies in one of the most important areas in education research: the intersection of education policy and instruction, focusing particularly on teachers' responses to the policy environment in the U.S. and internationally," said Barbara Schneider, John A. Hannah University Distinguished Professor in the College of Education and the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. "Her papers have addressed policy attributes, elements of professional development, the quality of professional development and comprehensive school reform. Her work exhibits versatility, ranging from theoretical to methodological, synthesis to empirical analysis, all illuminating her central issue from varied perspectives."

For example, in a recent Bill and Melinda Gates-funded study, Desimone investigated how K-12 teachers' beliefs about culturally responsive teaching and professional learning influenced their teaching practices. This teaching approach builds on students' strengths and provides motivating and ambitious classroom instruction to support their academic success. Desimone and her co-authors found that teachers' beliefs about their own self-efficacy - their self-confidence and beliefs about their teaching capacity - made a big difference in whether they adopted culturally responsive instruction.

"Our work builds on previous work that has shown how impactful, ambitious and culturally responsive teaching can be for students," said Desimone. "Following that work, we wanted to better understand how to support teachers in developing and using high-quality instructional strategies that work for them and their students."