Approaches to Professional Learning: Common Themes and Elements
As I reflect on the five approaches to professional development that I have outlined in this series of posts, I notice some common elements or themes: A Focus on Student Learning. In each of these approaches student learning is...
Approaches to Professional Learning #5: Action Research
To some extent, “action research” is formalizing something that good educators do informally all the time. Every time a teacher ponders a challenge they are facing in the classroom, considers possible interventions to...
Approaches to Professional Learning #4: Adaptive Expertise and Professional Conversations
Teachers need all kinds of expertise to carry out their work. Some of it is “routine” – developing effective responses to known challenges in a stable context. Teachers do indeed need this kind of expertise, being...
Approaches to Professional Learning #3: Instructional Coaching
Like Reflective Practice, the idea of “coaching” is not unique to education professionals. The specific approach of “Instructional Coaching” has been championed by Jim Knight (see links below for references) to support the...
Approaches to Professional Learning #2: Reflective Practice
“Reflective Practice” is a professional learning approach that is not unique to education, but used in various forms in other professions as well. It is generally conceived as a cycle of practice/experience, assessing...
Approaches to Professional Learning #1: Professional Learning Community
The “Professional Learning Community” approach to professional learning has become well known – so much so that the term is now used to describe almost anything teachers do in teams. The term originally gained popularity...
Approaches to Leading Professional Learning
Most school leaders who I have the privilege to interact with highly value professional development. They wish to learn and grow themselves, and to support the learning and growth of the staff they lead. But deciding how to...