Research School Network: Department professional development – how to ensure it’s effective Sarah Murray considers how subject leaders can set and do what can make a difference when it comes to department PD.

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Department professional development – how to ensure it’s effective

Sarah Murray considers how subject leaders can set and do what can make a difference when it comes to department PD.

Professional development (PD) in secondary schools is becoming increasingly more subject specific. While this is both exciting and important, it also increases the need for subject leaders to plan and implement PD programmes with knowledge and application of the components that make them more likely to succeed in making a difference.

The EEF’s Effective Professional Development Guidance Report (2021) outlines four groups of mechanisms that PD should focus on. These are:

  • Building knowledge
  • Motivating teachers
  • Developing teaching techniques
  • Embedding practice.

Here, we’ll focus in particular on how subject leaders can plan and implement PD programmes composed of mechanisms from all four groups to ensure a balanced design’, boosting the chance of teaching ability increasing and a positive difference in the classroom.

Professional development (PD) in secondary schools is becoming increasingly more subject specific.

Planning PD

Professional development is only as powerful as the impact it has on pupil learning. Therefore, when planning PD, subject leaders should begin with a learning problem which needs addressing.

To monitor success, it’s crucial that the end point is defined by tangible outcomes to pupil learning that will be observed if the learning problem is resolved. With this end point in mind, subject leaders should view the PD time with their department as a curriculum.

The programme needs to build knowledge over time to equip teachers with the expertise needed so that teaching practice improves and may address the learning problem.

A key mechanism to consider when planning is to manage cognitive load’ as it can be easy to forget that just like the pupils in our classes, the fact that Human cognitive processing is heavily constrained by our limited working memory’ applies to adults too (Sweller et al., 2019).

To do this, subject leaders should plan incremental chunks which develop over time.

Build knowledge over time to equip teachers with the expertise needed so that teaching practice improves and may address the learning problem.

Different types of PD sessions

When planning, it’s useful to consider two different types of sessions, depending on the knowledge that needs building.

  1. Know that’ sessions – these develop teacher knowledge of subject content or pedagogy
  2. Do that’ sessions – these are practical and provide an opportunity to practise and receive feedback.

Getting the right balance between know that’ and do that’ sessions will help manage cognitive load and allow each type of PD to be carried out with sufficient time to master each chunk.

Additionally, if each chunk is planned to lead to an agreed goal’ that brings the new knowledge into action in the classroom, this is likely to motivate teachers and increase the potential of solving the learning problem.

Example: A Head of History is planning a series of department PD sessions. She is allocated six sessions with her team and wants to use them to improve the quality of teacher explanations, within teaching the Roman Empire.

The HoD identifies two aspects that need teacher development: teacher understanding of the science of learning and the use of prior knowledge checks to pitch explanations correctly.

She needs teachers to have strong knowledge of each method and be able to implement it effectively. Therefore, her PD plan will involve a combination of know that’ and do that’ sessions. First to develop knowledge of the pedagogy and then to retrieve that knowledge before planning to implement it practically.

Implementing PD

If PD is going to impact pupil learning, the implementation of PD sessions should pay close attention to the groups of mechanisms that Develop teaching techniques’ and Embed practice’.

The culture of PD sessions is particularly important and the guidance report suggests Arranging practical social support’ when changing adult behaviours. If subject leaders foster an environment where the department supports each other as a team, discussing the benefits and challenges of the changes, then the evidence suggests this is more likely to positively impact pupils’ learning.

With a positive culture of support in place, subject leaders need to explicitly model the technique with multiple examples and clear steps they want teachers to use.

Next, comes a period of practice so that teachers can plan and rehearse the implementation of the technique in a low stakes and supportive environment. Practice should be well set up with thought given to the location of the session and the groups within the team so that the feedback will be as valuable as possible.

This practice offers the chance for teachers to correct errors or improve the quality of their practice before the high stakes environment of the classroom.

Example continued: Returning to the Head of History, after developing knowledge of prior learning checks in a previous session, she is now running a Do that’ session where the aim is for the team to plan their prior learning questions for the next lesson in the scheme of learning.

These will be carried out on mini whiteboards and she has modelled the routine the department needs to use.

The HoD decides to pair her most experienced teacher with the ECT for guidance and pairs herself with the most reluctant teacher. These groupings lead to a productive 20 minute practice session where questions are planned and the script for the whiteboard routine learnt.

The session ends with the Head of History feeling confident that teachers will use prior learning checks to appropriately pitch the explanations they give the following lesson.

If you’d like to find out more, then join us for our FREE three-part webinar series: Effective professional development – setting and doing what can make the difference, from Thursday 28th November.

Sarah Murray

Sarah Murray

Assistant Director, Greenshaw Research School

Read more aboutSarah Murray

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