5 Ways to Promote Professional Learning and Development for Teachers

Offering plenty of high-quality professional learning and development opportunities can make teachers happier and drive student performance because—like any professionals—teachers are more likely to thrive in an environment that prioritizes their own career development.

But it can be difficult to build a culture of growth and development for teachers, who spend much of their days concentrating on growth and development of their pupils. Here are five ways to help your teachers, your students, and your district shine bright through educator professional development (PD).

Make Teacher Evaluations Count

Teachers can’t be accurately scored and reviewed by student performance alone. That’s why well-rounded teacher evaluations are vital to professional development.

Information gathered during classroom observations, collaborations, and interviews can offer valuable direction for preparing personalized PD plans for teachers.

When reviewing evaluations together, recognize the teacher’s strengths and provide specific, feedback that will help them identify areas where they can deliver more value for their students. Encourage them to take advantage of professional development opportunities focused on these skills.

Implement School- or District-Wide Learning and Improvement Initiatives

School- or district-wide improvement initiatives can help ensure consistency across classrooms and boost comradery among faculty. The key to successful group instruction and implementation is ensuring educators support the initiative, receive quality training, and have access to tools needed to apply what they’ve learned.

For example, when South Port Middle School identified an opportunity to improve student assessment quality, administrators began by training faculty in assessment efficacy. All educators learned how to design quality assessments, but measuring how students performed required a lot of data entry and analysis. PowerSchool Performance Matters Assessment gave teachers the tools they needed to apply what they learned — making online assessments and scansheets, and logging test result data — develop a culture of formative assessments focused on improving student achievement.

Encourage Progress with Ongoing Feedback

Administrators and teachers share a common goal — helping students succeed in the classroom and in life. Offering words of encouragement and progress notes throughout the school year and summer break helps keep the whole team aligned and moving forward.

Technology can make this quick and easy through:

• Email: Send articles to team members that support your common goals or interests. Pairing an interesting article with a short note to an individual member lets them know you’re thinking of them and support their learning and development.
• Messaging: Text brief messages of encouragement. Consider setting calendar reminders to help you remember days when this might be most appreciated—birthdays, work anniversaries, or following career milestones, such as completing certification.
• Group chat: Free apps such as Slack or Voxer can help your team stay connected over breaks and encourage real-time discussion about shared content.

Read to Lead

Reading a book is one of the most effective methods of personal development. Staying well-read enhances critical thinking skills, increases understanding of people and concepts, feeds curiosity, and instills the confidence to address challenges head-on … whether reading fiction, non-fiction, or resources for self-guided learning.

Encouraging faculty and staff to share their favorite reading material can help spread the best ideas and inspire others to start reading. Consider hosting onsite or virtual book clubs for educators so they can learn and share from one another, or ask your top teachers to suggest summer reading titles and compile a list of peer-recommendations.

Attend Conferences and Collaborative Learning Events

It’s hard to beat the inspiration of a conference or collaborative learning event, especially those focused on bringing together the brightest minds in K-12 education, such as PowerSchool EDGE.

Sending members of your faculty to interact with leaders in their fields can educate, inspire, and empower their work.

Large events happen across the country throughout the year, but also consider digital opportunities to collaborate with colleagues. Edcamps, or unconferences, gain popularity every year. Usually lacking planned sessions, these no-frills events offer discussion-based professional learning over a day or two, and attendees often choose which topics to discuss upon arrival.

Webinars are another option that require minimal resource investment but provide tremendous value. Consider attending as a team on a common screen or assigning out to view for discussion later.