In designing professional learning for system-level leaders, two participant roles emerge as key: learners of content and agents of change. For learners, the principles of strong instruction apply. Exposure to content must occur repeatedly, be connected to prior knowledge, and is most effective when communities of learners work together. As change…

Gathering evidence on the outcomes of any professional learning experience can be a challenging and complicated task. It involves consideration of a wide variety of perceptual and contextual issues, some obvious to education leaders and others not. Those who want to succeed in this process may find the following points helpful: (1) Always begin…

The field of staff development needs better evaluation both to improve the effectiveness of teachers' learning experiences and to produce credible evidence that will garner more support for professional development. Getting serious about evaluating professional development demonstrates that a school system or school is truly serious about…

A carefully developed, comprehensive professional development plan takes time, energy, and coordination of resources, but when it's done well, it can seem as effortless as a perfectly pitched curve ball. Seven steps, each with a set of guiding questions, can help planners meet the goal and create a program that produces results. [Appended to this…

Professional learning is necessary for a school or district to achieve its goals. It's logical, then, that professional development plans should not exist separately from school improvement plans. To be comprehensive, professional development plans must be integrated with improvement plans to produce a systematic effort that is results-driven,…

As additional funding and new legislation increase our focus on literacy, we should consider the findings of a study by the National Staff Development Council and the National Education Association on what works. The study reviews programs that have demonstrated improvements in student learning, and issues key findings for every grade level.

When Prince George's County Public Schools created a teacher mentor program, administrators also created a system for evaluating it with clear expectations and goals at the outset. Precisely defining objectives enabled leaders to see their progress, determine what needed to change along the way, and build support for the program.