The goal of this partnership’s professional development is to
foster teacher learning in key beliefs, knowledge, and skill areas so
that educators can implement effective practices that will create
effective STEM learning environments. As a result, the partnership
holds its professional development (PD) to a high standard by
evaluating PD effectiveness through focusing not only on what is
modeled in the PD, but also on what is implemented in the
classroom after teachers complete the PD courses. Desimone
(2009) contends that specifying a core set of PD outcomes and
associated measures will facilitate knowledge gained across the PD
field by ‘‘. . .establish[ing] consistency that would contribute to
building a knowledge base’’ (p. 186). This contention is complementary
to the goal of common measurement systems, which is to
facilitate comparative analysis and mutual learning across
organizations or programs (Kramer et al., 2009). The partnership
defined pedagogical content knowledge, instructional practices,
and teacher self-efficacy as the professional development outcomes
and measurement priorities.