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Effective Professional Development: What the Research Says

There is a growing consensus that professional development must lie at the center of education reform and instructional improvement. As a result, improving teaching has become a cornerstone of efforts to create better schools. In the words of one researcher, "unless a child is taught by competent teachers, the impact of other education reforms will be diminished. Simply put, students learn more from 'good' teachers than from 'bad' teachers under virtually any set of circumstances" (Wenglinsky 2000).

Although education research is expanding what we know about how to improve schools, teachers cannot translate even the most persuasive findings about teaching and learning into successful classroom practices without research-based professional development.
Federal officials, in particular, have made professional development one of the most important levers to improve the quality of public education. Most significantly, since the 2002 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), teacher professional development has become a major strategy for improving educational outcomes, especially for disadvantaged children.

In the 1990s, the U.S. Department of Education's Professional Development Team identified 10 principles of effective teacher professional development. These principles were developed from the best existing research on professional development and the judgments of many experts about promising models that schools should follow. The Department used these principles to create the National Awards Program for Model Professional Development. According to these principles, effective professional development

  • Focuses on teachers as central to student learning, yet includes all other members of the school community
  • Focuses on individual, collegial, and organizational improvement
  • Respects and nurtures the intellectual and leadership capacity of teachers, principals, and others in the school community
  • Reflects best available research and practice in teaching, learning, and leadership
  • Enables teachers to develop further expertise in subject content, teaching strategies, uses of technologies, and other essential elements in teaching to high standards
  • Promotes continuous inquiry and improvement embedded in the daily life of schools
  • Is planned collaboratively by those who will participate in and facilitate that development;
  • Requires substantial time and other resources
  • Is driven by a coherent long-term plan
  • Is evaluated ultimately on the basis of its impact on teacher effectiveness and student learning; and this assessment guides subsequent professional development efforts

Together, these conclusions suggest that professional development is more likely to be effective when it is ongoing and integrates teachers' dedicated learning experiences, such as time spent in a workshop or using interactive software, with practice in their own classrooms. Programs that provide extensive opportunities for practice give teachers opportunities to try out new strategies and adapt them to the needs of their students. When teachers have sufficient opportunities for practice, they can thoroughly learn new information and strategies, reflect on this information, and integrate what they have learned into their existing understanding of what works to raise student achievement.

Many of these principles stem directly from a large body of conceptual work on adult learning theory. Three major principles of adult learning theory are particularly relevant to delivering effective teacher professional development:

Critical Reflection Is an Essential Component of Adult Learning
According to adult learning theorists, effective adult learning models capitalize on adults' ability to reflect critically on their experiences. Critical reflection is the process through which individuals make meaning of their experiences and transform old beliefs into new ones. In developing this idea, theorists such as Schon (1983; 1988) have built upon the work of Dewey, Lewin, and Piaget to argue that learning cannot occur without integrating experience and reflection (Imel 1992).

Engaging in reflection is important for learning because it helps individuals analyze their own actions and reactions in situations that call for them to change. In particular, reflection helps them "identify the assumptions and feelings that underlie their practice and then to speculate about how these assumptions and feelings affect practice" (Kottkamp 1990; Osterman 1990; and Peters 1991, cited in Imel 1992). This kind of self-reflection is especially important when teachers are asked to question long-held assumptions about how students learn and to adopt new teaching strategies.

However, Brookfield (1995) suggests that critical reflection—similar to self-direction—is another learner trait that varies among individuals, and it also may be "domain specific." That is, some adults can be more or less self-reflective than others, and all adults can be more or less reflective in various areas of their life. For example, some individuals frequently reflect on their personal relationships but are less likely to examine their actions in professional settings. If teachers display significant differences in their self-reflective behavior, an important component of effective professional development aimed at changing teaching practice may involve supporting and enhancing critical reflection in teachers who already engage in this behavior and helping other teachers to develop this skill. Encouraging teachers to maintain a journal to reflect on their learning experiences and providing opportunities for teachers to share these reflections support this component of the learning process.

Adults' Diverse Learning Styles Require Multiple Instructional Strategies
Adult learning theory suggests that adults, like children, have a variety of learning styles. Also like children, they bring to new learning situations different levels of experience and understanding that affect their understanding of new material and openness to change. In response, effective professional development acknowledges teachers' diverse learning styles, backgrounds, and experiences in its delivery strategies (Learning First Alliance 2000).

The National Staff Development Council's Standards for Staff Development (2001) support this principle of adult learning theory and recommend that professional development programs address differences in learning styles among teachers. Their guidelines state, "The most powerful forms of professional development often combine learning strategies. [For example], . . . to promote the development of new instructional skills, training may be combined with coaching, study groups, and action research."

Research supports the ideas behind these standards. Studies show that professional development has the greatest influence on teacher knowledge and practice when it combines several instructional elements, such as coaching, theory, demonstration, practice, and feedback (Bennet [1987], cited in Snow, Burns, and Griffin 1998). One study of reading professional development is particularly instructive. It demonstrated that neither lectures nor cooperative learning alone was as effective as both were together in helping teachers learn reading instruction concepts (Wedman, Hughes, and Robinson [1993], cited in National Reading Panel 2000).

Self-Direction Motivates Adult Learners
An early assumption that emerged in adult learning theory was the idea that adults have a deep need to be self-directing (Lindeman 1926). This idea was later developed in the work of Knowles (1980), Cross (1980), and Lowry (1989) who emphasized that adults and children do not have the same learning needs. In particular, these studies indicated that adults need to initiate the learning process and take an active role in what and how they learn. As an outgrowth of this assumption, adult-learning theorists, such as Lawler (1991), argued that designers of professional development must recognize and accommodate the voluntary or self-directed nature of adult learning. Professional development that offers teachers choices about how and when to learn will likely produce greater interest and more sustained involvement in learning.

Some adult learning theorists, however, have challenged the idea that all adult learning is self-directed. They believe that self-directed learning should be viewed as more of a continuum, with individuals exhibiting varying degrees of self-directedness (Lowry 1989; Heimstra 1994; Merriam 2001). This modified formulation not only acknowledges the importance of and variations in selfdirection, but also emphasizes the influence of external factors that help learners take responsibility for learning (Heimstra 1994). In other words, adult learners take responsibility for constructing meaning in learning situations, while the participation and support of others helps to confirm what is worth learning (Garrison 1997).

Recognizing that not all adults are self-directed to the same extent, designers of professional development programs can play an important role in helping instructors empower their adult students to take more responsibility for learning. To do so, they can use delivery approaches that model learning strategies but also encourage teachers to apply and refine these practices in their own classrooms.

The concept of self-direction in adult learning is also important for instructional delivery in the context of another principle of adult learning: adults evolve from simpler to more complex ways of knowing, and they move through these sequential development phases at different paces (Drago-Severson et al. 2001). Extrapolating from this principle, a professional development delivery model that encourages flexibility and self-direction will allow adult learners to pace their learning activities so that they are in sync with their own developmental stage in specific content areas. They can move quickly through material that is familiar and concentrate on new ideas and practices.