What Makes Professional Development Effective

Every fall, school and district leaders make decisions about how to spend professional development dollars. Some of that money comes from local budgets, and a large share comes from Title II, Part A, which arrives in two installments and must be spent on activities that meet the federal definition of professional development. You have many options for professional development, like conferences, workshops, in-person trainings, online trainings, coaching, and more. The difficult part for you, though, is determining which professional development activities will be the most effective for your teachers.

This article gives you some ideas on what effective professional development means. In this article, you will first learn about the research on what effective professional development looks like, summarized in seven characteristics that you can use as a checklist. The second is the definition of professional development written into the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which determines whether an activity is an allowable use of federal funds. Understanding this in more detail will help you choose professional development that improves instruction and also withstands a compliance review.

Why the Quality of Professional Development Matters

Teachers are the most important in-school factor in student learning, and professional development is the primary method that a school can use for supporting and improving a teacher who is already working in the classroom. When designed well, professional development improves what teachers do in the classroom and, as a result, how their students learn. When professional development is poorly designed, it wastes time and produces little to no measurable change in the classroom.

In one review of nine studies, Yoon and colleagues (2007) found that professional development programs averaging 49 hours over a school year raised student achievement by about 21 percentile points, while programs of 14 hours or fewer showed no measurable effect on students. In another review, Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan (2018) analyzed 60 studies of instructional coaching and found meaningful effects on both teaching practice and student achievement, with the strongest results in programs that combined coaching with structured content and in smaller, more targeted programs. And, in a longitudinal study, Kraft and Papay (2014) followed teachers over ten years and found that teachers working in schools with strong professional environments, including effective professional development, improved 38 percent more than teachers in schools with weak professional environments.

• 60Studies of instructional coaching analyzed by Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan (2018)
• 38%More improvement for teachers in schools with strong professional environments
• 10 yearsLength of the Kraft and Papay longitudinal study behind that finding

These findings are important because choosing the right kind of professional development, sustained over time, helps improve performance and makes the spending of your Title II allocated funds justified.

The Seven Characteristics of Effective Professional Development

The most widely cited framework for evaluating professional development comes from the Learning Policy Institute. Darling-Hammond, Hyler, and Gardner (2017) reviewed three decades of research and identified 35 rigorous studies that linked professional development to changes in teacher practice and improvements in student outcomes. Across those studies, effective professional development shared seven characteristics. You can use these as a checklist when comparing options for your own school or campus to help ensure you are meeting all or most of these characteristics for effective PD on your campus.

1. Content focused

   Effective professional development concentrates on teaching strategies tied to specific curriculum content, such as elementary mathematics, early literacy, or secondary science. Allowing teachers to be able to connect what they are learning to their specific content areas makes the PD much more effective. Generic sessions on broad topics where teachers aren’t able to connect what they are learning to their own classroom are less likely to change classroom practice than sessions built around the material teachers actually teach.

2. Incorporates active learning

   Teachers learn the way students learn. Professional development that asks teachers to design lessons, try strategies, analyze student work, and practice new techniques produces more change than professional development delivered as a lecture. If a professional development only includes a passive lecture where teachers are unable to think through how it can be applied to their own classroom, they are less likely to take that content back and implement it.

3. Supports collaboration

   Effective professional development creates space for teachers to share ideas and work together, whether in grade-level teams, departments, or cross-school groups. By hearing other teachers’ ideas, learning how colleagues are using the professional development learning, and applying it to their classroom, it allows teachers to gain more context into what works and what doesn’t, and it often helps teachers connect more deeply with the PD concepts if they are able to collaborate with others.

4. Uses models of effective practice

   Teachers benefit from seeing what the new practice looks like. Lesson plans, unit plans, sample student work, video of classroom instruction, and written cases give teachers a clear picture of the target. When teachers have real examples to consider, real resources to analyze and think through how to use in the classroom, and specific ways to implement the concepts, they are more likely to use the concepts themselves in the classroom.

5. Provides coaching and expert support

   Access to an expert, whether a coach, a mentor, or a course facilitator, allows teachers to get help with their individual questions and to adapt a strategy to their own students. And, when professional development is structured in a way that allows teachers to have a plan to practice implementation after the session, it allows a campus administrator to follow up and support the teacher as he or she practices implementation in the classroom.

6. Offers feedback and reflection

   Effective professional development builds in time for teachers to reflect on what they tried or what they want to try, receive input, and make adjustments. Without this step, teachers often try new strategies once and abandon them; or try them and don’t realize when something is or isn’t working.

7. Is of sustained duration

   Teachers need adequate time to learn a new practice, try it in the classroom, reflect on the results, and try again. This is why the research consistently favors professional development that unfolds over weeks or months rather than a single day. Giving teachers access to the professional development they need on an ongoing basis, rather than, for example, once during an in-service training, means they get consistent support throughout the school year.

8. No single program will be equally strong on all seven characteristics, and the report carefully notes that these features work together rather than in isolation. When you evaluate an option, the useful question is how many of the seven it addresses and how well, and what you would need to add locally to cover the rest.

What ESSA Says Professional Development Must Be

The Every Student Succeeds Act includes its own definition of professional development, found in Section 8101(42) (opens in a new tab) of the law. If you are spending Title II, Part A funds, this definition is the standard your activities must meet. Under ESSA, professional development activities must be an integral part of school and district strategies for giving educators the knowledge and skills to help students succeed, and they must be:

Notice how closely the ESSA definition tracks some of the research and its conclusions that you reviewed earlier in this article. “Sustained” corresponds to sustained duration. “Collaborative” corresponds to supports collaboration. “Classroom-focused” and “job-embedded” correspond to content focus, active learning, and models of practice. “Data-driven” and the requirement to evaluate impact correspond to feedback and reflection. Congress wrote the definition after the research on effective professional development was well established. In practice, professional development that satisfies the seven characteristics will nearly always satisfy the ESSA definition.

Putting Both Frameworks to Work

The U.S. Department of Education’s non-regulatory guidance on using evidence (opens in a new tab) recommends a five-step cycle: identify local needs, select relevant evidence-based interventions, plan for implementation, implement, and examine and reflect. The seven characteristics and the ESSA definition fit inside that cycle. Here is a practical sequence you can follow when planning professional development for the coming year.

1. Start with your data, not with a catalog.

   Identify the specific instructional need you are trying to address, such as reading comprehension in grades three through five or classroom management among first- and second-year teachers. Or, maybe you have a specific teacher who is struggling in one area. The ESSA definition requires professional development to be data-driven, and a documented needs assessment is the first step.

2. Screen your options for professional development against the seven characteristics of effective PD.

   For each option you are considering, note which of the seven characteristics it addresses on its own and which you would need to supply locally. An online course, for example, may be strong on content focus, models of practice, and sustained duration, while your campus supplies the collaboration and reflection through team meetings.

3. Check the ESSA definition.

   Confirm that the activity is sustained rather than a single event, that it is connected to classroom practice, and that it fits within one or more of the eighteen listed activity types. If an option is a one-day workshop, ask yourself what follow-up you would be able to add to make it sustained and job-embedded.

4. Write down your rationale.

   For most professional development, you can record the need you identified, the activity you selected, the research that supports that type of activity, the change in teacher practice you expect, and the student outcome you expect to follow.

5. Plan the evaluation before you start your PD.

   ESSA lists regular evaluation of impact among the activities that count as professional development. Decide in advance what you will collect: completion records, teacher reflections, walkthrough data, and a student measure tied to your original need.

How Model Teaching Courses Fit This Framework

Model Teaching offers professional development courses for schools and districts that are designed to meet the standards described in this article. Each course is content-focused, addressing a specific instructional topic such as checking for understanding, explicit instruction, classroom management, or reading instruction, and each is built around models of practice, including lesson examples, downloadable planning tools, and classroom scenarios. Courses require teachers to apply the strategies in their own classrooms and reflect on the results, supporting active learning and reflection. Because terms are over 12 months, schools can select courses for their teachers over time, ensuring sustained duration. What’s even better is that courses can be personalized for each teacher or teacher group’s specific needs, allowing you to choose PD based on need.

Frequently Asked Questions

About This Article

References

• Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., & Gardner, M. (2017). Effective Teacher Professional Development. Learning Policy Institute. learningpolicyinstitute.org (opens in a new tab)
• Every Student Succeeds Act, Section 8101(42), Definition of Professional Development. Summary at Powered by Title II. poweredbytitleii.com (opens in a new tab)
• Guskey, T. R. (2002). Does It Make a Difference? Evaluating Professional Development. Educational Leadership, 59(6). ASCD. ascd.org (opens in a new tab)
• Kraft, M. A., Blazar, D., & Hogan, D. (2018). The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence. Review of Educational Research, 88(4), 547–588. doi.org (opens in a new tab)
• Kraft, M. A., & Papay, J. P. (2014). Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(4), 476–500. journals.sagepub.com (opens in a new tab)
• U.S. Department of Education. (2023). Non-Regulatory Guidance: Using Evidence to Strengthen Education Investments. ed.gov (opens in a new tab)
• Yoon, K. S., Duncan, T., Lee, S. W.-Y., Scarloss, B., & Shapley, K. (2007). Reviewing the Evidence on How Teacher Professional Development Affects Student Achievement (Issues & Answers Report, REL 2007-No. 033). Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest. files.eric.ed.gov (opens in a new tab)