Committee for Children Blog

The State of Teacher Professional Learning

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The State of Teacher Professional Learning,” a report just released from Corwin, Learning Forward, and the National Education Association, shares the online responses of 6,300 teachers from across the United States in response to questions about professional development. Teachers say that they would like student achievement, job-embedded collaborative learning, and personal needs to inform their professional development, but in fact teachers have little say in their professional learning and little time for collaboration.

ESSA defines high-quality professional development as sustained, intensive, job-embedded, collaborative, data-driven, and classroom-focused. According to a report by the Frontline Research & Learning Institute, 20 percent of professional development offered does not meet that definition. The report, “Bridging the Gap: Paving the Way Pathway from Current Practice to Exemplary Professional Learning,” builds on current work and offers a path forward to quality professional development. Recommendations from the survey report include: provide continuous job-embedded learning, use multiple sources of information to assess professional development, and include teachers in decision-making.