Teachers want Professional Learning (PL) that respects their time, expertise and authentic challenges.

Teachers comment on what would make professional learning worthwhile in their contexts. 

  • “Schools need to invest in teachers in a meaningful way. The one training and done approach is not effective. Effective leaders know that after training teachers, teachers need coaching and mentoring.  They know that training is just the beginning.” —Teacher in New York
    • “Training is just the starting line — real growth happens with coaching, mentoring, and ongoing support! Let’s invest in teachers the right way!” —Special Education Teacher in South Carolina
  •  “What PD topics would you actually want? … A few of us teachers have been asked to submit ideas for professional development. I’m just not sure because all the negative talk around professional development makes me think I shouldn’t even bother because people will be checked out anyway.” —High School Teacher in Illinois
    • “Every recent teaching fad relies on giving kids ‘rich’ tasks. These are problems that are: Not too easy, not too hard, are aligned with the learning target, have multiple entry points, require deep learning and deep thinking, are fun. I don’t need another PD telling me how great things would be if I would only assign ‘rich tasks’. I need a book with actual ‘rich tasks’ arranged in curricular order so I can serve them out to my kids. ‘Rich tasks’ exist, and they’re great, but they’re rare…and hard to come up with on your own. Instead of asking 100,000 math teachers to invent the wheel, give us a PD that hands out wheels, please.” —High School Math Teacher
    • “School wide, consistent, actionable, behavior plans. Work as a whole school to create an actual flow chart that addresses behaviors. If everyone is on board and actually consistent, I would love to see it.” —Teacher in Texas
      • “Strategies to reduce classroom disruptions. Please don’t tell me to be more engaging, ignore the behavior, or to build a relationship with kids. What we’re doing isn’t working.” —Middle School Teacher
      • “… I don’t want behavioral strategies, or anything to do with PBIS. I wish more PD in general was collaborative and free (like as in admin isn’t being restrictive). I’d love to talk to other social studies teachers in other districts. Or other class advisors, other department heads, other people in roles I share. Too often as you age in education you’re the only person who’s been doing what you’re doing so there is no other person to ask. I’m a veteran – I basically never have inner classroom issues I need help with, and real improvement would need to be on seeing how others do it.” —History Teacher in Massachusetts
    • “Actual, in-depth, research based professional [learning]. I’ve had so many ‘intro to micro-transgressions’ and such. Nothing like, ‘Here’s the absolute latest research on dyslexia and what we can do about it’ presented to me like I’m a competent professional.” —Elementary School Teacher
  • [Responding as advice for someone running professional development sessions for teachers] “If you haven’t been in a classroom as a teacher in the last 3-4 years, don’t act like your idea or solution is going to work. Spend some time finding out about the real needs of teachers, including dealing with students’ behavior and administrators who think that the behavior is because enough time wasn’t spent on relationship building or the teacher wasn’t engaging enough for the student.” —Teacher in Michigan 
  • [Responding as advice for someone running professional development sessions for teachers] “… Make sure whatever the PD is about, it is useful. Just because it sounds fun in the classroom doesn’t mean that it can be used in the classroom. [And,] help the teacher use the PD for their standards, not to improve some socially driven word of the week that people in upper education came up with.” —High School Teacher