Teacher Professional Learning

I feel strongly that teaching is a professional craft. As such, teachers must hone their craft over time through the practice and experience of teaching. There is important value in pre-service teacher training programs. Through university teacher education programs, pre-service teachers learn the content of subject-areas, they learn pedagogical methods, and they probably a little developmental and educational psychology. These are all necessary conditions for a teacher, but, without the practice of teaching itself — specific subject-area topics, to specific students, in a classroom — these conditions are necessary, but insufficient for expert teaching. Teachers move from novice to expert by drawing on their various knowledge domains of subject-matter, pedagogical methods, educational psychology, etc., bringing it together in the context of actual teaching. The transition from novice to expert is slow, gradual, on-going, and context-specific. Even the most experienced of teachers face a learning and refinement curve with each new topic, each new cohort of students, each new school, each new technology, and each cultural shift.

I also believe that there is a difference between an experienced teacher and an expert teacher. One does not develop expertise merely by putting in years of experience. One’s teaching practice must be deliberate and reflective; the teacher must approach teaching with a willingness to learn and improve. A teacher must be willing to collaborate with colleagues and learn from those with more expertise. Sometimes this also requires guidance from outside experts.

From my experience, one-off teacher professional develop workshops have their place, but are not as effective as teacher professional learning that is incremental, reflectively embedded in the teacher’s practice, collaborative, subject-specific, and sustained. My goal is to support teachers and schools to set up the practices and structures that support teachers in developing their teaching craft towards greater teaching expertise. In the end, the expertise of the teacher is the single greatest contributor to the learning of students.

Please reach out if you’d like to discuss how I can provide support on teacher professional learning in your school. This may be with a specific group of teachers, such as a department, or it may be about supporting at the school level to put supportive professional learning structures in place.