Professional Development for Authentic Pedagogy in the Social Studies: An Evaluation

Throughout the state of Minnesota, teachers have been attending brief staff development workshops to familiarize themselves with the Minnesota Profile of Learning and to help them use model performance packages in their classrooms. The movement toward more authentic standards-based performance assessment, however, requires a significant shift in thinking about teaching and learning–changes in assessment require corresponding changes in instruction. With funding from the Department of Children, Families and Learning, the Authentic Pedagogy in the Social Studies (APSS) project provided secondary social studies teachers with sustained professional development to assist them in their implementation of the graduation standards throughout the 1998-99 academic year. This evaluation looks at the program’s impact on instruction, assessment, and student learning.