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In today’s rapidly changing world, students’ and educators’ needs constantly shift, necessitating timely, relevant professional learning to ensure that everyone has the skills to succeed.

Throughout the edLeader Panel, “Intentional Professional Learning for Teachers. Real Impact for Students,” Ginette Collins, Director of Product Marketing at HMH, had a conversation with Dr. Kris Peterson, former educator and current National Director of Innovation and Data Insights at HMH, Jennifer Lenhardt, former educator and current Director of CXPD Content Development at HMH, and Kirsten Carr, Senior Policy Advisor at Foresight Law + Policy, about creating data-driven, engaging, and sustainable professional learning that meets educators’ needs.

Using Data with Purpose

Professional learning must address the real needs of students and educators, focus on what matters, and build relevance and engagement. It strengthens teachers and bolsters retention, keeping good teachers in their schools. Creating effective professional learning plans means using data with purpose. Data collected from students can be used to determine student needs and plan for targeted support through school resources, teachers, and support staff. Districts use data to consider available resources, resource gaps, teacher and student needs, and what does or doesn’t work, allowing them to make better instructional decisions.

The 4 Data Categories

Data clarifies student and teacher needs, identifies educator strengths and growth areas, and aligns professional learning to district goals. There are four categories of data used for aligning teachers’ professional learning needs:

1. Student Learning Data – Consists of data regarding student achievement and growth, formative assessments, and attendance and behavior trends.
2. Teacher Practice and Perception Data – Gathered from teacher observations and self-assessments, used for timely, relevant professional development.
3. Context and Organizational Data – Consists of how professional learning is organized and the school culture around it, and academic growth trends, which are useful for determining further steps and showing that continuous professional learning works.
4. Outcome and Impact Data – Shows shifts in practice, changes in retention and satisfaction, and impacts on student learning.

Data is used to create continuous professional learning plans that can almost immediately change and adapt to teachers’ needs, rather than taking a year or longer to be implemented.

Achieving Lasting Impact

The best professional learning has a lasting impact, which is achieved by meeting the needs of those it affects. Leaders must center educators’ experiences, expertise, and needs, have clear results in mind, and plan out how to achieve those results. Data collection is crucial for this. Tools such as empathy interviews, where interviewers listen to educators to find what they need and what works or doesn’t, are vital for creating responsive professional learning plans. Responsive plans are co-created with educators to ensure their individual needs are met, and are adaptable as needs change. Those elements are highly important for professional learning and should be kept in mind when reflecting on existing professional learning plans.

Co-creating professional learning plans necessitates building trust with teachers, communicating and collaborating with them, and ensuring that data is used to drive capacity and efficacy. Oftentimes, designing professional learning involves overly focusing on why things are being done, and not what or how those things are done. Sometimes, though, it’s better to lead with what’s being asked of teachers or how it affects their work, and the why of the matter can be addressed at the end or connected to throughout the professional learning.

Professional learning’s impact can be sustained through smart resourcing. Most education funding comes from state and local funds, such as IDEA and Title I. There are multiple Title funds and ways to use existing Title II funds to support professional learning, and many states have passed legislation focusing on educational initiatives that include funding that can be used for professional learning. Additionally, many budgets include resources and ways to combine funding for professional learning.

Data-driven, professional learning fueled through thoughtful resource management creates lasting impacts on teachers and immediately gives them what they need. This, in turn, creates a better learning environment for students, giving them the education they need as they step forward into tomorrow.

Learn more about this edWeb broadcast, Intentional Professional Learning for Teachers. Real Impact for Students, sponsored by HMH.

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With a focus on what moves each learner, HMH delivers what educators need to foster growth and build lasting momentum. We create integrated K–12 learning solutions for core, supplemental, intervention, assessment, and professional learning—delivered on one streamlined platform. Our technology can flex, uncovering smarter insights about students and helping educators act on what motivates them.

Article by Jon Scanlon, based on this edLeader Panel