We all have professional development stories where we attended some training for 8 hours, and gained great information. We then went back to our respective campus and to our classroom and then nothing. No support for implementation, no practical help for things that go wrong in the classroom. The following five principles will ensure effective professional development for teachers.
Principle 1: The duration of professional development must be significant and ongoing to allow time for teachers to learn a new strategy and grapple with the implementation problem.
- Professional development that is longer in duration has a greater impact on advancing teacher practice, and in turn, student learning. It is said that teachers need at least 50 hours of instruction, practice and coaching before a new teaching strategy is mastered and implemented in class.
Principle 2: There must be support for a teacher during the implementation stage that addresses the specific challenges of changing classroom practice.
- Simply increasing the amount of time teachers spend in professional development alone is not enough. Significant time has to be spent dedicated to supporting teachers during the implementation stage. Support at this stage helps teachers navigate the frustration that comes from using a new instructional method.
Principle 3: Teachers’ initial exposure to a concept should not be passive, but rather should engage teachers through varied approaches so they can participate actively in making sense of a new practice.
- In the same way students must first understand a concept before applying it, teachers need a thorough understanding of research or theory before they can attempt implementation in their classrooms. Therefore, attention also
has to be paid to how new practices are introduced.
Principle 4: Modeling has been found to be highly effective in helping teachers understand a new practice.
- Modeling, when an expert demonstrates the new practice, has been shown to be particularly successful in helping teachers understand and apply a concept and remain open to adopting it.
Principle 5: The content presented to teachers shouldn’t be generic, but instead specific to the discipline (for middle school and high school teachers) or grade-level (for elementary school teachers).
- Several studies have shown that professional development that addresses discipline-specific concepts and skills has been shown to both improve teacher practice, as well as student learning.
http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/system/files/Professional%20Development.pdf
Educational Leadership 