High Quality PD gleaned from The Learning Principal

In a recent article of The Learning Principal (Volume 4, No. 5, Feb. 2008), an ongoing study of professional learning sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the MetLife foundation and the Wallace foundation pointed our several items that contrast professional learning in the United States with professional learning worldwide. The article said, "If teachers with a school are not learning and collaborating, student learning will not improve...one important role for principals is facilitating professional learning." Facilitating is defined as making the process easier or to impartially control all tasks needed to conduct optimal meetings and workshops. Linda Darling Hammond who has been actively involved in studying this learning made the following observations:

• Effective professional learning must be planned and organized to engage all teachers regularly and to benefit all students.
• One of the keys to increasing quality teaching is by creating the time for teachers to learn collaboratively
• Collaboratively is job embedded professional learning structured within the work day
• Collaborative time should be focused on both improving their grasp of context and on pedagogical strategies proven to affect student achievement

Lastly, the study in its early stages pointed out that many teachers experience with professional development in the United States are with one-shot workshops that are ineffective for changing practice or affecting student learning. Effective professional learning will happen when we sustain the professional learning over longer periods of time and then implementing this learning directly into the classroom. This is another example of the professional learning community as being the most effective method for delivering professional learning.

Darling-Hammond, L. (1997). The right to learn: a blueprint for creating schools that work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.