Personalized Professional Learning: A Job-Embedded Pathway for Elevating Teacher Voice

by Allison Rodman

It's time to say goodbye to "sit-and-get, one-size-fits-all" PD sessions and embrace professional learning that meets the needs of all teachers. Allison Rodman's Personalized Professional Learning provides district and school administrators with a roadmap for transforming existing professional development programs into more effective and innovative learning experiences that elevate onsite expertise while still aligning with school and district priorities. This book is a step-by-step guide for diagnosing, planning, executing, evaluating, and refining teachers' professional learning. Supported by research and informed by the experiences of educators across the United States, it distills best practices for adult learning into clear advice and ready-to-use tools. Curious about what it looks like to commit to a personalized approach that prioritizes teacher voice and provides meaningful opportunities for co-creation, social construction, and self-discovery? Rodman provides answers and a clear way forward.

Genres: Education

168 pages, Paperback

Published May 23, 2019

About the author

Allison Rodman is the Founder and Chief Learning Officer of The Learning Loop, an educational consulting organization that provides professional learning services to districts, schools, nonprofit organizations, and businesses internationally. This includes work with public, charter, and independent schools, over 20 archdioceses, and over 60 sites across the Americas, Europe, and the Pacific for the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).

Allison is an ASCD Faculty Member and author of "Still Learning: Strengthening Professional and Organizational Capacity" (2023) and "Personalized Professional Learning: A Job-Embedded Pathway for Elevating Teacher Voice" (2019). Her work focuses on adult learners, and she has written for Educational Leadership on professional learning, effective teams, and educator wellness, as well as Education Week's Classroom Q&A and Edutopia.​

Allison brings experience as a teacher, instructional coach, school leader, director of teaching and learning, director of professional learning, and board member.

Allison designs, facilitates, and coaches professional learning that is personalized, purposeful, and paradigm-shifting. She is deeply committed to connecting learners together and sharing resources to personalize the learning process at every level of the system.

The goal of her work is to help adult learners:

- View learning as an ongoing experience (not an endpoint of one-time workshop)

- Strengthen their professional and organizational capacity

- Create deliberately developmental organizations.

Reviews

[Gregg Bruno · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was exceptional! Look, a lot of Ed books can be high on good feelings but short on substance. NOT THIS ONE. It does a PHENOMENAL job giving both the research and best practice for personalizing professional learning with bona fide examples and practical templates to use yourself in your school with your staff. It really is a gem in terms of being pragmatic and usable!

[Brandon J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is outright fantastic! Mrs. Rodman brings theory and practice together in a way that helps educators begin the process of shifting to a professional learning organization. She discusses how one-size-fits-all PD sessions rarely lead to a change in professional practice and offers insight for professional learning facilitators to elevate the voice of teachers. The examples and tables provided will help you develop and implement a sound personalized professional learning plan for your school or district.

[Tiffany Layton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down! We spend so much time talking about the importance of personalized learning for our students but forget to have the important conversations around the value of personalized learning for us as educators. Thanks so much for bringing this conversation into the mainstream with so many practical strategies and accessible resources! Personalized Professional Learning: A Job-Embedded Pathway for Elevating Teacher Voice is a well-written treasure!

[JaVaughn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presented a lot of really insightful points and got me thinking a lot about professional learning at my site. Great book!