What did the researchers learn from their study on teacher’s beliefs? Before the professional development, teachers with strong ILD preferences matched to traditional learning contexts were significantly more "at risk" (i.e., had fewer interventionist beliefs) than the other teachers; the former teachers were significantly overrepresented in the sample. After the professional development, teachers' interventionist beliefs increased significantly, regardless of their ILD preferences. Neither the length of the professional development (28 hours vs. 56 hours) nor the amount of teaching experience affected the teachers' interventionist beliefs about students. The researchers concluded that a mediated, constructivist, and collaborative professional development option that sensitizes teachers to individual learning differences can increase effective teacher beliefs about students. The researchers also concluded that developing more effective teacher beliefs about learners should become a component of teacher professional development.
The upshot is that if, as a teacher, you believe that a student’s struggles are insurmountable and attributable to an unalterable variable (i.e., the student herself or something that can’t be changed, such as race), then you will likely not believe your actions as a teacher will have efficacy. It is believed that teacher dispositions are as crucial for student achievement as a teacher's pedagogical and content knowledge/skills. A review of the NCATE teaching standards and the National Board Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) reflects this stance.
As Thornton (2006) points out, the discourse on “teacher quality” has centered on issues of (1) teacher knowledge and (2) teacher skill, yet a third element that is central to all professional standards is (3) teacher dispositions (p. 54). Although there is no consensus on a definition for teacher dispositions, there are several models in use regarding how dispositions are being addressed. Most prevalent in terms of assessing dispositions are the standards of professional organizations such as National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC).
In fact, in recent years almost all teachers becoming certified to teach nationally would have participated in some sort of evaluation process that included the area of dispositions. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) first added dispositions to its standards in 2000. NCATE oversees accreditation for approximately 70 % of the nation’s colleges of education, and its standards are used in the majority of non-accredited institutions to evaluate professional licensure requirements.