Research School Network: What makes for effective Professional Development? Amy Carlile considers how effective Professional Development can make a real difference to teacher quality and pupil outcomes.

Evidence suggests that quality professional development has a greater impact on pupil attainment than other interventions that schools may choose to consider.

It is extremely encouraging therefore to see that professional development has been woven into the frameworks of many of the new initiatives and reforms, such as the Early Career Framework (ECF) and the new National Professional Qualifications (NPQs), thus recognising the crucial role that it plays in improving classroom practice and pupil outcomes.

However, evidence also tells us that professional development opportunities can be inconsistent in quality, insufficiently evidence-based and do not focus sufficiently on specific pupil needs (Developing Great Teaching, 2015). Effective professional development takes time to develop and implement, and as we know it is unfortunately not always of the same high quality.

Many will have experienced less than satisfactory training sessions at some point, potentially with very high price tags. The implementation of effective professional development can be a bit of a minefield with huge variation on impact and quality levels. Fortunately, there are steps we can take to help us to ensure that professional development is well‑designed, carefully selected, and implemented so the investment is justified.

The EEF Effective Professional Development Guidance Report offers three key recommendations on how to improve professional development and design:

1. When designing and selecting professional development, focus on the mechanisms.
2. Ensure that professional development effectively builds knowledge, motivates staff, develops teaching techniques, and embeds practice.
3. Implement professional development programmes with care, taking into consideration the context and needs of the school.

The report identifies 14 mechanisms that should be considered by those designing or selecting professional development. Mechanisms are defined as being ​‘the core building blocks of a programme. They are observable, can be replicated, and could not be removed without making that professional development less effective.’

Essentially, the more ​‘building blocks’ incorporated into a training programme, the greater the chance of success. These mechanisms and the report in its entirety, offer a valuable set of guiding principles to support senior leaders to ensure that professional development is as impactful as it possibly can be.

The mechanisms or ​‘core building blocks’ are grouped into four categories with accompanying guidance:

• Building knowledge – How can we present new knowledge in ways that support understanding? 
• Motivating teachers – How can we motivate teachers to act upon their new knowledge? 
• Developing teacher techniques – What techniques and tools do teachers need to improve their practice?
• Embedding practice – How can we support teachers to effectively embed practice in order to encourage continual improvement?

It is recommended that those who design professional development should plan to include at least one mechanism from each of the four groups in their programme. It is, however, important to mention that these mechanisms should not be seen as a checklist that we can simply tick off.

The guidance outlines the importance of achieving a ​‘balanced design’, where a programme has been carefully designed in order to feature mechanisms from each of the four groups. If one or more of the groups are missing, the professional development opportunity may potentially fail; for example, without opportunities to build knowledge there may be misapplication of teaching techniques.

The EEF guidance report has certainly provided a new perspective on professional development design. Whilst we know that including mechanisms does not guarantee that professional development is effective, we do know that this is of course our best bet based on recent evidence. 

By considering professional development design at this more granular level we can help to increase the likelihood that it will make a real difference to teacher quality and pupil outcomes, which is something that I am very excited about.

Join me at our Focus Day on Effective Professional Development on Thursday November 17 in Sutton to explore the role of PD and key considerations.