Dive Brief:
- Beginning this school year, Long Beach school district will implement a personalized learning platform for teachers called “myPD.”
- The program is supposed to offer an alternative to cookie cutter professional development and pair teachers with the resources they need to improve their instruction.
- Teachers create a profile and can access the district’s PD curriculum and resources, as well as track their progress toward their stated goals and join online professional communities.
Dive Insight:
As standards for students have shifted and accountability for teachers has increased, professional development and support systems have lagged behind. Many systems remain tied to old standards and old ways of doing things and their effectiveness has been questioned. Long Beach’s new approach is an ambitious bid to outrun the shifts going on in its schools by supporting teachers, but not by adding accountability.
Education Week reports that the district’s leaders say “the myPD system is not designed for remediation, or to 'make' a teacher a professional; it assumes they already are one.” That means principals only have access to teachers’ profiles if the teachers OK it. The focus is instead on collaboration and learning communities that allow teachers to work together while learning from each other and for themselves.
