One way to judge the benefits, status and effectiveness of CPD is to look at this from teachers’ perspectives, with a focus on different aspects of their classroom-based learning. Teachers place most value on approaches to learning that involved experimenting with classroom practices and adapting what they do in the light of feedback from their pupils and colleagues, and in the light of their own reflections and self-evaluation. This is a stable pattern irrespective of school and teacher characteristics. The lesson learnt from this is that part of what it means to be a teacher, whatever the context, is to be experimental and adaptive. Teachers do not need to be persuaded of the importance of professional learning for supporting their pupils’ learning.
Research-informed and collaborative approaches to CPD are two characteristics of effective CPD. However, these approaches are not significant features of learning for most categories of teachers in England. Teachers do not tend either to collaborate or to engage with research-informed ideas in their CPD. ASTs, excellent teachers and headteachers are exceptions to this trend. Teachers need to be supported at schools to develop more collaborative and research informed approaches to their CPD. PLN’s make this activity so much easier but this is underused as a tool in schools CPD programmes.
Another way to understand the benefits of CPD and therefore planning was by considering why teachers decided to take part in CPD. This allows you to understand your school context and which benefits of CPD were important enough for your teachers, to persuade them to attend CPD. Teachers identified a wide range of benefits of CPD, including:
• working with other colleagues
• improving their professional abilities
• addressing immediate school needs
• gaining more information
• having a positive impact on pupils’ learning
• improving academic achievement
• following up previous learning
• addressing immediate classroom needs, and
• gaining a better understanding of National Curriculum requirements.
Surprisingly, gaining accreditation is not an important benefit of CPD for teachers.
The benefits of CPD vary significantly by school and teacher characteristics. However, the main patterns of difference are between the benefits identified by secondary and primary school teachers. Primary teachers believe the collective benefits of CPD to be more important than do secondary teachers – including addressing immediate school needs, working with colleagues and improving pupils’ learning. Secondary teachers’ responses are noteworthy for identifying benefits that are not important, rather than benefits that are important in their decisions to participate in CPD.
It is clear that teachers at different career stages, with different levels of experience and responsibility, vary in the benefits of CPD that they see as being more important than others. The lesson learnt from this analysis is that the benefits of CPD are not universal; rather, teachers’ perceptions of the benefits of CPD activity are strongly associated with their individual contexts.
The final way of understanding the benefits of CPD is to consider which CPD practices school leaders consider to offer value for money. Generally, school leaders believe that school-based and classroom-based CPD activities provide better value for money and therefore more benefit than non-school-based CPD activities. For example, in-school workshops, mentoring and teacher networks were rated highly. Similarly, school leaders rated highly CPD activities that focused directly on learning or learning process.
CPD activities that teachers describe in the survey tend not to reflect the TDA characteristics of effectiveness. The CPD activities undertaken by teachers do enable them to develop skills and knowledge – this is the impact most often identified by teachers as a result of their CPD. However, few of the other impacts identified would indicate that learning occurs beyond this personal, superficial level: teachers rarely identified school-level impacts or impacts on the beliefs or practices of other teachers or pupils. Thus, there is little indication that CPD is currently seen as having an impact on raising standards or narrowing achievement gaps.
When teachers take part in CPD, they are mainly learning through lectures, presentations and discussion. Few teachers reported taking part in CPD using active forms of learning such as extended problem solving or demonstrating a lesson. Also, these activities are not sustained, continuous or embedded over time. The CPD described by teachers also lacks a coherent focus. Teachers most often identified more than one focus for the activity in which they spent the most time. This most likely suggests that CPD is not often tied to professional development plans or collective decisions. Further, the activities were rarely evaluated. There are, of course, some teachers and some schools that participate in more effective forms of CPD than others and have a lot to offer in way of advice for school to school CPD.
The most used forms of CPD currently are descending order of participation.
- Listened to a lecture or presentation
- Participated in a small-group discussion
- Collaborated as a colleague with other teachers
- Participated in a whole-group discussion
- Assessed pupil work
- Developed or reviewed materials
- Used technology (computers, calculators, whiteboards, etc)
- Reviewed pupil work
- Observed a demonstration of a lesson or unit
- Practised the use of pupil materials
- Produced a paper, report or plan
- Formal post-activity evaluation of the learning
- Led a small-group discussion
- Engaged in extended problem solving
- Completed paper and pencil problems or exercises
- Gave a lecture or presentation
- Led a whole-group discussion
- Conducted a demonstration lesson, unit or skill
- Assessed fellow participants’ knowledge or skills
No mention of Twitter/blogging/e-learning - The question why needs to be asked by school leaders?
Anyone making use of e-learning in a structured approach to whole school CPD?
Extracts taken from Schools and continuing professional development (CPD) in England – State of the Nation research project
