Waving Goodbye to Drive-By PD

There has been a great deal of knocks on professional development as of late and rightfully so. More often than not, professional development is something that is done to educators as opposed to an experience that they truly value for growth.  For many, district professional development is a one-size-fits-all isolated event with no follow-up or support.  If impact, changes to practice, and sustainability are the ultimate goals then efforts must be made to better support teachers and administrators. It’s time to move past the practice of “drive-by” PD that has very little, if any, impact on professional practice. 


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Let’s first tackle the stigma that comes with professional development. Learning is the ultimate goal for our students, not development. As such, districts need to invest in professional learning opportunities that will result in fundamental changes to teaching, learning, and leadership.  

Learning Forward describes what effective professional development looks like:

“Effective professional development enables educators to develop the knowledge and skills they need to address students’ learning challenges. To be effective, professional development requires thoughtful planning followed by careful implementation with feedback to ensure it responds to educators’ learning needs. Educators who participate in professional development then must put their new knowledge and skills to work. Professional development is not effective unless it causes teachers to improve their instruction or causes administrators to become better school leaders.”

Professional learning definitely matters and effective planning and implementation is key.  A research review by the Wallace Foundation found that effective districts invest in the learning not only of students, but also of teachers, principals, district staff, superintendents and school board members. A motivational keynote that provides practical, proven strategies for improvement is a good start to set the table, but what happens after this is what really matters. In order to ensure a wise investment of time and resources that will result in sustainable changes, it is important that professional learning be:
On-goingJob-embeddedSupported with coaching (face-to-face or virtual)Personalized and differentiated (i.e. micro-credentials)Facilitated by people who have done the work and implemented successful change that resulted in improved student learning outcomes and achievementDirectly correlated to professional practiceAligned to research and cases studiesAddresses real challenges educators faceSustainable over timeSo what does this actually look like? Our work at the International Center for Leadership in Education has been focused on these elements above for many years.  This is something I take great pride in. Since coming to ICLE almost two years ago we have integrated these principles into our Digital Leadership and Learning services as outlined HERE. In the process we have helped districts and schools embrace meaningful changes leading the digital transformation.  

Change takes time. Districts need to take this into consideration when investing in and implementing professional learning if the goal is meaningful change to improve student learning and professional practice.  This cannot be accomplished with drive-by PD.