We are reimagining professional learning for educators.
(Because it’s high time PD doesn’t stink)
We are moving from this ↓
To this ↓
In many districts around the country this is the norm: Professional development (PD) is centrally mandated with school and district leadership choosing the areas to focus on without much input, choice, or leadership from teachers.
Professional learning activities are designed primarily as whole group experiences where all educators experience the same content in the same ways. Not what we want for kids - why should it be this way for adults?
Professional learning activities are overwhelmingly (and often tediously) passive, based primarily on lectures with little time for collaboration and application.
PD is designed and experienced as discrete, isolated experiences - over a day or two during a school break or vacation - with few connections between them.
Professional learning is experienced as something separate from educators’ main responsibilities and activities and is, at best, indirectly tied to student learning.
Teachers learn and apply their learning on their own without meaningful feedback or collaboration with colleagues.
Content knowledge is the primary focus of PD, and content is communicated through traditional learning processes like whole group lectures and presentations.
In the new world of PD, educators CHOOSE what they need to learn based on personal, school, and district-wide goals. Plus, rather than have outside consultants or school leadership run the PD, educators are the ones who design and facilitate the activities for their colleagues.
Now professional learning activities are highly personalized, allowing educators to engage at their level of readiness and shape their own learning path.
In the new model, PD is active. Educators engage in collaboration with one another and are invited to immediately apply their learning.
Instead, PD is now designed with clear long-term goals in mind, enabling educators to develop knowledge and skills over extended periods of time and know the work they are doing is relevant and important.
Now PD is closely intertwined with educators’ core role, with a primary focus on practices that directly impact student learning.
Educators frequently and meaningfully engage with one another and with mentors/experts throughout their professional learning. This can be through Professional Learning Communities, mentorships, co-planning, co-teaching, or other means of collaboration.
How educators learn is emphasized just as much as what they learn. Educators have the opportunity to learn in a dynamic, learner-centered manner. Professional learning designers explicitly cultivate essential mindsets, like a growth mindset and a commitment to equity.