Dive Brief:

• The shift in thinking of professional development as personalized professional learning can help support educators in furthering their own learning and skill development, writes All4Ed, a national advocacy organization. This can include the addition of peer interaction among educators and applying what they’re learning directly with their own students

• To do so, the non-profit encourages administrators to re-adopt a tool they may have used during the pandemic — learning management systems. The asynchronous learning a LMS facilitates not only allows administrators to view how educators are handling new information they’re learning, but align content with evaluation rubrics as well.

• Teachers can then share with other educators what they’ve applied from LMS-embedded content in their own teaching, which supports peer learning.

Dive Insight:

Targeted, personalized professional learning is critically important for administrators who want to make any new curricular initiative successful across a school or district. Whether that’s adding new tools and resources or new models for teaching and learning, schools can improve and personalize the professional learning they’re putting together for teachers and then see it manifest in the classroom.

Administrators will want to ensure educators are getting adequate time and support from coaches as they launch into any new professional learning opportunities. And they should consider offering shorter periods of learning — some as short as 10 minutes — with a simple focus on a specific tool or skill.

Hands-on support from peers can be key, too, such as establishing professional learning communities within a district or school site, which can help to ensure professional learning is also supporting equitable options for all students and educators.

In Compton Unified School District in California, for example, administrators and teachers worked together to form a cohort of eight male educators of color, who met, on average, every other month to talk and work together on professional challenges and concerns. The group supported and empowered each other’s growth, and within three years, participation in the network grew to 22 teachers. 

Teacher coaching also plays a role in the Maine Township High School District 207, near Chicago, Illinois. There, Superintendent Ken Wallace made sure to focus not only on student learning, but what adults in the district — including educators — needed to continue on their growth path. Teachers get training as well as coaching from within their cohorts, with each plan individualized for their needs.

Personalized professional support is crucial to ensure educators develop their own strengths and skills, so all learning — for teachers and students alike — stays current, fresh and helps all concerned grow.