Gary Lupton on teaching teachers: Are we meeting educators’ needs?

This story was written in the spring of 2020 by GRAD 5144 (Communicating Science) student Brandon Semel as part of an assignment to interview a classmate and write a news story about his research.

    Have you ever wondered who teaches teachers how to teach?

    After working in public education for a few years, Gary Lupton started asking this very question. He noticed that some of the teacher trainings and conferences he attended were helpful while others were not. Most of what Lupton learned that helped him be a more effective teacher came from experience in the classroom and advice from other teachers. With time, he started to wonder just how much information was out there that he and his colleagues didn’t know about.

    It took about 13 more years before he had the chance to find out.

    Currently, Lupton is pursuing a Ph.D. in Virginia Tech’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction. His mission is to ensure that high school teachers involved with Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs receive valuable instruction when they need it.

    Lupton assesses the teaching and development needs of teachers across Virginia. He uses surveys to compare how teachers rank the importance of different competencies against how skilled they are at performing them. For example, teachers need to be able to create lessons that prepare students to use skills needed within specific industries, and they may or may not receive adequate training in preparing such lessons.

    By having teachers address their own needs and competencies across disciplines, career stages, and geographical areas, Lupton expects to learn how professional training can best be designed to address teachers’ needs across divides.

    Lupton has seen these divides firsthand. He has lived and worked in public schools across Virginia and has seen the level of autonomy granted to Virginia’s school districts and teacher trainings. While this flexibility enables school districts to address the different needs and realities of educating students across the state, it also means that teachers in neighboring counties receive very different trainings from one another. Some teachers have opportunities to build their skills in a number of important areas while others may rely, as Lupton did early in his career, on experience in the classroom and advice from colleagues.

    Lupton hopes that his work will improve teacher trainings by eliminating training gaps and shortfalls so that teachers are better prepared to educate students for success in an everchanging world.