Effective Professional Learning

The reading for this week is a foundational paper that explores effective professional learning.

Key points are below:

• Effective professional development is one of the keys to improving schools.
• Teacher learning leads to improved instruction and student learning.
• Embed professional development (co-teaching, mentoring, reflecting on lessons, book club).
• Some of the most powerful learning experiences occur in a teacher’s own classroom.
• Successful professional development follows these steps:

1. 1. Teachers experience professional development.
   2. The professional development increases teachers’ knowledge and skills, changes their attitudes and beliefs, or both.
   3. Teachers use their new knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs to improve the content of their instruction, their approach to pedagogy, or both. (This part is hard, and usually requires rehearsal, work with a coach and the use of video).
   4. The instructional changes that the teachers introduce to the classroom boost their students’ learning. (This needs to be measured).

What you can do:

• Share the latest research into professional learning with your team.
• Use this article as a checklist and compare your current professional development practices.
• Explore coaching.