There is a wide gap between how teachers and school leaders view professional development. For many teachers, PD conjures up images of boring, one-sided lectures that have little to do with their classroom reality.
In fact, almost half of the 1,498 teachers surveyed by the EdWeek Research Center in October 2023 said they found their PD 鈥渋rrelevant.鈥� In stark contrast, only 16 percent of the 659 school leaders surveyed during the same period thought the same about teacher PD.
School leaders have tried different things to make the PD they offer more relevant and engaging for teachers. Some have encouraged teachers to pick a topic they鈥檙e passionate about, while others have moved mandatory PD modules online for teachers to complete at their convenience. Some school leaders believe frequent follow-up check-ins with teachers can help them apply what they learn in their PD sessions.
Still, it鈥檚 a struggle for school leaders to design the PD teachers want as they juggle district-mandated trainings and initiatives needed to meet their schools鈥� goals, said Brooklyn Joseph, a lead program facilitator with Lead by Learning, a program at Northeastern University where she partners with schools to design professional learning.
With all this information coming at them, teachers feel like they鈥檙e ingesting a lot of content that doesn鈥檛 always link back to their classroom practice, Joseph said during an 91制片厂视频 Week K-12 Essentials Forum on school leadership last month.
Getting PD right isn鈥檛 just a time or resource challenge, Renee Gugel, an assistant professor of teacher leadership at the National Louis University in Chicago, said during the forum. To make PD fun and engaging for teachers, principals also need to build their own capacity.
鈥淪ometimes, [the obstacle] is not knowing how to go about it,鈥� Gugel added.
Gugel and Joseph made three key recommendations to school leaders on designing PD that鈥檚 useful to teachers. Their session can be viewed in the above video.
Start with the right information
Surveys at the start of the school year are a good way to pick up information on the kind of PD teachers want. The challenge is that school leaders seldom share or reflect on the results with teachers, Gugel said.
鈥淚t can be hard [for school leaders] to share the results. Teachers are going to say stuff you don鈥檛 agree with or feel offended by, because you planned the PD [sessions],鈥� Gugel said.
But if school leaders can be transparent about the feedback in staff meetings, it can signal to teachers that they鈥檝e been heard and their concerns are being addressed. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an immediate climate shifter,鈥� Gugel said.
The information loop shouldn鈥檛 be restricted to surveys. Joseph recommends creating 鈥渄esign teams鈥� of veteran and new teachers across grades and subject areas who can help school leaders plan PD based on past survey feedback. Teachers may respond to PD better if their peers help plan it, Joseph said, and design teams can help make these sessions more relevant to their needs.
鈥淪chool leaders don鈥檛 have to plan all the PD by themselves in a vacuum,鈥� Joseph said.
Teachers should also have the option to answer survey questions anonymously, Gugel said, if they are nervous about openly critiquing a PD session planned by their principal.
Strike a balance between teacher agency and a school鈥檚 instructional goals
Effective PD should focus on one or two key topics chosen by teachers, Joseph said.
鈥淛ust like we provide structures and routines for students in classrooms to do their own independent learning, once we allow that choice [to teachers], we find that they want to explore [more] about their instructional practices. [Teachers] have to care about what they鈥檙e learning,鈥� Joseph said.
Gugel added that PD should be actionable鈥攖eachers should be able to apply practices they learn during PD in their classrooms shortly after the session takes place.
The PD that emerges from this process, though, should not be completely detached from the school鈥檚 instructional goals.
The process to find the best PD should be grounded in a school鈥檚 data, Joseph said. School leaders and teachers can look at test scores as well as internal school indicators like student behavior. Teachers and school leaders should look at these data together and determine areas for improvement.
By doing that, Joseph said, teachers have the agency to choose their own PD but are still guided by the school鈥檚 overall instructional goals.
Some school leaders can be wary of giving too much choice to teachers. Gugel warned against this: 鈥淲hen teachers hear that their school leaders trust them to use their [PD] time well, that鈥檚 motivating in itself.鈥�
The most popular form of teacher PD
The most exciting form of PD, both experts agreed, is when teachers can learn from each other.
Teachers learn from each other informally through observing classrooms or catching up over instructional strategies in their free time. But Gugel and Joseph recommended that school leaders also create more formal PD spaces for such sharing.
Then, teachers can share their experiences trying out new teaching methods and discuss new patterns of student learning. For instance, teachers can use these spaces to drill down on specific tactics like how to best organize a classroom to encourage student learning in smaller groups.
These 鈥渃ollaborative groupings"鈥攁s part of smaller professional learning communities or larger PD sessions鈥攃an also help newer teachers get a feel for what鈥檚 going on in their peers鈥� classrooms, and how they can adapt some of these instructional strategies in their own teaching, Joseph said. This type of PD is a useful way, too, for veteran teachers to share their experiences, instead of spending time going over trainings they鈥檝e already had.
Arranging this opportunity for PD might be yet another task on a leader鈥檚 to-do list, but Joseph said it鈥檚 worth the effort.
鈥淲e want to have a vision for where we are taking teachers,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut we also want to provide space and time for teachers to take us on a different journey 鈥� [to] the place where they are feeling inspired and passionate.鈥�
