S5 E8 - When Teachers are Learners - Making Professional Development Work

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Hello and welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast recorded here in Tasmania on the lands of the Palawa people. I'm Jocelyn, and today we're going to talk about something that's relevant for every school how we can make our teacher professional learning more effective. Through my work as both a teacher and leader, it has always been clear that adults benefit from a structured approach to learning in the same way that students do. Using the explicit teaching model and other evidence-based approaches to instruction helps create safety and predictability and reduces stress for both students and adults. In this episode, I'd like to share suggestions of how we can apply Rosenshine's principles to working with our teams in professional development. Before we start exploring the principles, let's acknowledge something important While adults benefit from the same learning structures as children, when we're doing something new we bring more background knowledge and experience to the table. This can be both a help and a hindrance. If we're learning something that's close to what we know, it can support our learning, but if we have incomplete or false preconceived ideas, it can make it harder for us to reimagine what great teaching looks like. And this isn't about a lack of commitment. It's just part of being human. I'd also like to share a little bit about Barack Rosenshine and why his work matters so much.

Rosenshine was a researcher who spent decades studying what makes teaching effective. His principles weren't just theoretical ideas. They came from three different sources of research cognitive science, studies of master teachers and research on cognitive support procedures. What makes his work so powerful is how it brings together what we know about how the brain learns, what successful teachers actually do in their classrooms and how we can support complex learning tasks. When we look at current research in cognitive science, particularly work around cognitive load theory and the importance of retrieval, it aligns beautifully with Rosenshine's principles. For instance, his emphasis on small steps and guided practice reflects what we know about how working memory limitations impact learning. His work on review and questioning connects directly to research on how we consolidate learning through retrieval. These aren't just good ideas. They're practices grounded in how our brains actually work. So let's explore how we can harness these principles and the research about student learning to better support our teachers to develop their capacity.

The first principle is begin with a short review of previous learning. When we work with children, we know how important it is to activate prior knowledge and review previous learning. It helps us tap into our existing schema to support the current learning focus. It's no different with teachers, but this step is often skipped in professional learning sessions. We kind of assume that because teachers are professionals, they'll remember everything from our last session three weeks ago. Think about it. They've taught dozens of lessons, attended multiple meetings and dealt with countless situations since then. So a review for our staff might look like a quick write activity about key concepts, partner discussion about implementation attempts or even using retrieval practice with a big box of questions.

The second principle is present new material in small steps with practice. In our enthusiasm to upskill teachers and the pressure that we all feel to move quickly, we often try to cover too much in a short space of time. As a leader, I've been guilty of this myself, knowing that we only have this one hour for the next four weeks. So we're trying to cover all aspects of a topic in that one session. But just as we wouldn't overwhelm our students with multiple new concepts at once, we shouldn't do this with teachers either. So when we're introducing new teaching practices, break them down into manageable components. Focus on just one element at a time, allow time for processing and the opportunity for application. We need to give it a go and then we can come back and reflect, building on each step as we go. This is why our Teach Along courses are presented in small chunks over a period of time. It allows teachers to focus on the smaller elements that are most important to them at that time and to practice them.

Principle three is ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students. With teachers, this principle looks different than with children, but it's just as important. We need to regularly check for understanding and check in on engagement, and we can do this in a non-threatening way by having regular check-ins during professional learning sessions. Have teachers explain concepts to each other, not just tick boxes about what we're doing. We can use tools like exit tickets or reflection journals, and it's really important to create opportunities for everybody to contribute, not just that confident few.

Principle four is to provide models, and this is so critical in teacher professional learning. Just showing teachers what to do through an explanation isn't really showing them. We need to demonstrate why and how. So when you're learning something new, I'm sure that you want to see it in action, right? Well, we know that as teachers, we're the same. We can do this in our professional learning with video examples of expert teaching, live demonstration lessons, clear examples of planning documents, show samples of student work and assessment and how they relate back to that lesson plan and that modeled lesson, and you can show recordings of teacher student interactions. When I visit school and I was doing that just this week, supporting teachers in their learning journey one of the things that I do is to model lessons. The school is then invited to record the lesson and keep the video on file for future reflection and professional learning.

One of the reasons this is important is because it helps our team develop common, shared understandings of what we want the practice to look like. If we just talk about it and look at the lesson plans, you can have five teachers develop five very different versions of that lesson because they're imagining based on their own experience, but having something to watch can be really powerful. Remember, though, it's also about follow up, not just the watching, but you don't have to get someone in to do this work. If you have someone on your team who's a master at using a certain strategy or delivering a particular lesson type, record them and put the video into a folder for future reference when you work in a small school or you're dealing with teacher shortages, as everyone is. It can be near on impossible to release people as much as you would like to for observation, so video helps that enormously. It also means that people are viewing a high quality example. So that you're again building that shared vision. So that you're again building that shared vision.

Principle five is provide guided practice In teacher professional learning. Guided practice is often the missing link. We send people off to training. They do the training. We come back they've got the stuff. We send them off to their classroom to go and teach and have a play, but we're really expecting them to implement perfectly in their classrooms all on their own. It's a little bit like showing students how to solve a maths problem once and then expecting them to master it by themselves. So, when it comes to teachers, effective guided practice might look like collaborative planning sessions, role-playing, new techniques in PLC or staff meetings. You can have team teaching opportunities. You can structure planning times with coaching support. Coaching is so important in our journey as teachers. It's critical, though, that we do create those opportunities for practice in a way that enables immediate feedback and that this feels like a safe process. Nobody likes to be observed or practice in front of others when we feel like we're being judged.

Principle six is check for understanding and again, while the principle is the same, how we do this with teachers is a little bit different than with students. So we can have regular implementation discussions, peer observation, feedback, as long as that feels like a safe space. Self-reflection protocols support the development of a shared vision, so you can have teachers video themselves and, using a set of standard criteria for success, evaluate their own practice. Visible success criteria is important for students and it's also important for the adults. We also have to remember to include data review in this checking for understanding.

The entire goal of professional development is not just to tick boxes and feel good. It's to make sure that we are positively impacting student results. If we're not seeing a bump in that monitoring data, if we don't have evidence that students are learning what we're teaching, the impact of our professional learning is minimal. And remember, professional learning and professional development can be two different things. Professional development is grounded in action that leads to strong outcomes.

Principle seven is obtain a high success rate. This principle is crucial for building teacher confidence and maintaining momentum. Remember, every teacher learning to implement a new approach or technique is a novice, regardless of their years of experience. We have to set our team up for success. So have realistic implementation goals and include shared action planning with dates assigned to particular actions.

Provide adequate support structures. It's not enough to say you've got your training, you've got your books off, you go call me if you have any dramas. Not enough to say you've got your training, you've got your books off, you go call me if you have any dramas. Celebrate together the smallest of wins, because developing practice isn't about one massive thing. It's about consistently applying small techniques and improvements, and success, ultimately, is built in a series of small wins. So celebrate them. Don't discard them because we think they're not good enough. We can also adjust the pace of implementation slightly based on teacher needs. Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not talking about waiting until every member of the team is comfortable before you make a move, but some people are happy to move faster. Others like to have a couple of weeks to digest and observe others. Give people that space and time. It's not a one size fits all, however. Your whole team does need to be on the bus and you do need to be moving in the same direction with similar timings. This helps people feel secure, which then has the knock on effect of helping them get quick wins early on in the process, building buy-in as you go.

Principle eight is provide scaffolding. This is very clearly aligned with the create successes and help people feel safe and secure in what they're doing. So we scaffold for students and we should do it for our teachers as well. So giving people examples of lesson plans and giving them resources to use is a form of scaffolding. Providing people with pre-made resources and lessons is not a way to take them out of the equation. It's there to help lighten their cognitive load. But remember that the provided lesson or the scripted lesson is not the end of the story. It's only the start of the journey in building our teacher capacity. Give teachers the chance to co-teach and remember coaching is critical for the successful transfer of practice into the classroom and the benefits you get in student outcomes. So don't scrimp on the coaching. Do as much as you can and sometimes that means thinking outside the box with what we've got to work with, but do as much as you can and it will be a gift to your team. Lots of clear success criteria and step-by-step implementation guides also help.

Principle nine is require and monitor independent practice In our teaching, this is where the rubber meets the road. In teacher professional development. It's about actually implementing and actually taking the action. So it's not enough to say we did some PL, we did some practice. You had a play. Teachers need to be using what we are implementing consistently, but again, it's not about throwing them into the deep end.

Principle 10 is engage in weekly and monthly review, and it's not just about remembering facts, it's about deepening understanding and refining practice. So PLC meetings are a great space for this, where you can unpack implementation challenges, refer back to theory and deepen our understanding through action.

Professionals don't just learn knowledge through reading. We learn it on our feet. We learn it through action. So having space for reflective practice is really important. Data again comes into these discussions, and connecting our new learning to frameworks and theories helps us continue to deepen our understandings In our Leading Learning.

Success Professional Development Program, every staff meeting begins with a review of key ideas and information learned during the program. One and done in PL is about as effective as one and done in the classroom. In fact, it's never sufficient to help us build lasting knowledge. Just as we differentiate students, we need to differentiate our professional learning for our team. Some might need more support with certain aspects of training with greater intensity, and others are ready to move ahead more quickly. This is not a reflection of capability. It's about previous experience. It's about personality. It's about how we learn ourselves, and we as leaders need to meet people where they're up to and help them grow from there. But it's not just for our leaders to remember this, it's for every one of us who works in a team. We all support each other and being gentle with each other helps us feel safe. So we're going to have a very clear vision on where we're going with this instruction. What element of student outcomes are we going to impact and then support and scaffold people so that they can make that happen?

Before we wrap up today, I want to emphasise one last thing. Professional development only happens when there is engagement that leads to action. Theoretical knowledge is important, but it's not sufficient. We need to ensure our professional learning has measurable outcomes and leads to improved practice in the classroom. That means that leaders have a responsibility to ensure that professional development is something done with people, not done to them. However, the flip side of this is that teachers also have a professional responsibility to engage in a professional and respectful manner, to be open to new learning, regardless of years in the classroom.

To be reflective practitioners so that they continue to move themselves forward. This helps move the team and the students forward into the long term. So many adult focused dilemmas in school can be solved with insights gained from how we successfully support students to learn. When it comes to PL, it's no different. We can use things like Rosenstein's principles, our understanding of cognitive load theory, about working memory and about supporting learning into the long term to help us teachers to thrive. That's all from me for this week. Until next time, happy teaching everyone. Bye.