Most Teachers Don’t Think PD Is Relevant. What Can Principals Do?

By Jessica Calabrese & Elham Kazemi 

Principals believe they are delivering relevant professional development. Teachers disagree. Principals survey teachers and feel they are including teacher voice in PD plans. Teachers feel like PD is done to them. Principals look forward to PD days. Teachers dread them. The EdWeek Research Center’s Teacher Morale Index highlights this schism.

It’s unlikely, however, that principals and teachers have dramatically different visions for teaching and learning. They likely agree that rich, engaging, empowering learning experiences for students are at the heart of what’s relevant. But somehow, despite the ubiquitous commitment to professional learning communities and teacher-directed learning, schools make little time for teachers to improve the craft of teaching. The pressure and discourse of accountability, differentiation, intervention, and raising test scores continue to hijack the ability of school leaders and teacher teams to follow through on that commitment. Yet, this work is really a difference maker for teachers and students.

What if we used PD time differently?

What if principals and teachers worked together to nurture the craft of teaching? A good way to think about is this: Even if there is a schism about what kind of PD is relevant, there is agreement about the need to dedicate time to nurturing instructional craft. It might just come down to how we determine what’s important to focus on during that time.

Teachers are continually working to hone their practice to better engage their students. Over the course of our 12-year research-practice partnership, we have seen how powerful it can be when leaders choose to spend PD time working with teachers to develop their skills. Teachers and leaders can jointly explore how students are (or aren’t) accessing instruction and the challenges teachers face in designing instruction that invites each student to be invested in the learning. Using collaborative planning and PD time to identify and respond to these challenges together changes how school leaders and teachers can leverage their unique roles to support teachers’ growth in making effective instructional decisions.

Consider these two scenarios.

Group 1: Teachers, an instructional coach, and the principal meet to review and disaggregate recent student data. Their goal is to identify what lessons they should revisit and which students need intervention for prerequisite skills. By the end of the meeting, they have determined which lessons to reteach and the students they will need to pull out for a brief intervention.

Group 2: Teachers, an instructional coach, and the principal meet to review student work to examine the range of strategies students are using as they approach the middle of a unit. Their goal is to be responsive to their students’ current ideas as well as to challenge and strengthen their learning. By the end of the meeting, they have modified several lessons and identified two instructional strategies to provoke deeper learning.

Both groups are working on current problems of practice and using data to inform their instruction, but the scenarios result in different experiences, for both teachers and students. One group narrows the impact on students and the other enriches instruction for all students.

Group 1 determines what to reteach and creates a plan to intervene for the students missing fundamental skills. It’s timely and responsive and aims to identify and respond to gaps. But their plan focuses only on a subset of students.

Group 2 focuses on identifying potential instructional opportunities based on student thinking and how to make classroom decisions that will nudge students forward. These teachers are positioned as learners in a collective effort, working with school leaders to continually improve responsive instruction. As a result, their students will experience a more responsive and, therefore, better learning experience than Group 1.

How to get there

Working together on the craft of instruction is a powerful and relevant way to use PD time. Teaching is an incredibly complex task that demands continual reflection and adjustment. And educators can work together to enhance the classroom experience for themselves and their students. Leadership and time dedicated to supporting teacher learning has a direct impact on student learning.

These shifts can get you started.

1. Begin with student thinking. Teachers think a lot about what their students can do and what challenges them. Explore that together. Every child is on the trajectory toward meaningful, conceptual understanding, but not all children are in the same place. Talk to students. Look at their work. Look for the nudge that you can agree might push their thinking, then plan out how to do that and make an agreement to try it.
2. Select challenges that can have the greatest impact on teacher and student experience. Some challenges are immediate, like identifying the nudges described above, but some are larger in scale and complexity. Why don’t students share their ideas during discussions? How do we deepen teacher knowledge of writing progressions or fractions? Choose and frame challenges in ways that allow you to name them, explore and identify strategies to address them, and then try them together so that you can observe the impact as a shared learning experience. Are kids sharing their developing ideas more because of this experiment? Did the adult learning on fractions change planning or instructional decisions in ways that support student engagement? Focus on desired impact and go from there.
3. Diminish positional hierarchy. The evaluative relationship between teachers and leaders creates status hierarchies that can be barriers to learning together. They stifle honesty, vulnerability, and risk-taking. When we shift to focus on mutually identified challenges as the collective goal, we bring our full professional expertise to the most relevant and meaningful challenge—getting better at the craft of teaching.

When we work together toward a shared vision for students, the needs and challenges we identify together drive our work. A shared agenda develops. Working together not only feels like time well spent for principals and teachers, it’s also how we change experiences for teachers and students.

Jessica Calabrese was a principal and the chief of school improvement in the Renton school district in Washington state. She now works with schools to develop sustainable and coherent teacher learning. Elham Kazemi is the Geda and Phil Condit Professor of mathematics education at the University of Washington. They are two of the authors of Learning Together: Organizing Schools for Teacher and Student Learning (Harvard Education Press, 2024).