Every teacher can recite awkward experiences from their teacher professional development past. Pleasing all the teachers all the time, with various approaches, is simply hard work!

Years later, I can still remember my left/right brain training (twice - by the same trainer!), as well as undertaking coaching approaches, and a whole array of different means to develop my practice. Happily, the dubious 'Brain training' has died a death, but the struggle to identify the best methods and content for professional development is still present across the country.

A new research study on professional development, and its impact on student achievement, tackles the muddy area with some interesting results that offer handy insights for busy leaders.

Entitled, '(When) do teacher professional development interventions improve student Achievement? A meta-analysis of 128 high-quality studies', it explores the really variable impact of professional development.

This exploratory research appears to indicate that the number of hours of training was not so significant. It is more a question of quality over quantity. More instructively, the researchers find that there are important principles to engineering more learning from teacher professional development. They identify four principles to apply to designing professional development:

  • Teacher performance standards: defining what teachers are supposed to learn in the PD and then monitoring that goal.
  • Teacher self-regulation: Encourages teachers to monitor and set their own goals, find time to reflect and manage themselves (with precious time!)
  • Teacher coaching: Sustained support to implement strategies in the classroom, with effective feedback.
  • Teacher cooperation: Teachers exchanging knowledge and feedback so that they learn with and from one another.

They found that hours being directly trained wasn't a key determining factor of impact, but that time (tools and support) is obviously necessary to fulfil the above principles.

The active nature of the teacher in the training is obvious. Teachers need clear goals and then need to monitor and plan with those goals in mind. Collaboration and coaching emphasis the sustained social quality of effective professional development. A September training day and a dream just won't cut it!

What also struck me about the new evidence is that is enriched and confirmed the seminal review by the Education Endowment Foundation on 'Effective Professional Development'. The 'balanced approach' from the EEF includes a range of 'mechanisms' which have a lot of parallels to the aforementioned research.

The EEF resources add a welcome specificity that can help leaders design professional development that is more likely to lead to a beneficial impact on student achievement. The specific 'mechanisms' are similarly broken down into four areas:

The mechanisms map well onto the principles indicated by this most recent study on teacher professional development.

The key message that attends teacher professional development is that it is very hard to do well! It isn't just about teachers working harder - there is the necessity for leaders to carefully establish and sustain the right climate and support for professional learning.

We must also remember: if so much teacher professional development evidently doesn't have a positive impact on student outcomes, that should give us pause.

This stuff is difficult - but there is progress being made and lots of great practice out there. Happily, the cumulative evidence-base is catching up and it allows leaders to be reflective of what they do, and what their teachers learn.

  • Find the EEF guidance on professional development and resources HERE.
  • Early career teachers may need a clear mental model of the learner. Prof. Dan Willingham makes a good argument HERE.
  • Sarah-Louise Johnson, from Essex Research School, has written a really interesting article on 'Professional development: moving from informing practice to sustaining change' - HERE.