Educational Leadership
February 2021
Making Professional Learning Stick
Volume 78, Number 5
Stock # 121039 S25
DESCRIPTION
What makes effective professional learning experiences truly effective? The February 2021 issue of Educational Leadership examines how and why good PD works, highlighting successful programs (including virtual programs), as well as research and practice on adult learning and knowledge transfer. Find ways to move the knowledge and performance needle in your school!
FEATURES
16 Moving from Talk to Action in Professional Learning
Jim Knight
Knowing the stages educators tend to go through as they implement a new approach makes it easier to support them.
22 Beyond Collaboration: The Power of Joint Work
Jenni Donohoo and Ann Mausbach
When professional learning is interdependent, a teacher’s individual success hinges on the efforts of the entire team. That’s a good thing.
27 The End of Boring Online PD
Mike Flynn
For virtual professional development to stick, make it engaging, challenging, and EPIC.
33 Learning to Challenge Racial “Colorblindness”
Vernita Mayfield
Professional development for antiracism must address gaps in educators’ awareness and understanding of racial inequities.
38 What’s Key to Sticky PD?
Fred Ende
The before and after of a professional learning event is as important as the event itself.
44 Five Professional Learning Transformations for a Post-COVID World
Douglas Reeves
How lessons from the pandemic can help reshape teacher learning.
49 Helping Teachers Feel Less Vulnerable in Peer-to-Peer PD
Lauren Porosoff
Teacher-led PD can be powerful—but leaders need to create the right conditions for it.
54 Professional Learning with Staying Power
Thomas R. Guskey
Six steps to evidence-based professional learning that makes a difference.
60 Students: The Missing Link in Teacher PD
James F. Nagle and Penny A. Bishop
When students are involved in teacher professional development, the experience has greater traction and long-term impact.
66 When Teachers Become Researchers
Sally Donnelly and Megan McCormick
Teacher research clubs can help teachers engage in specific problems of practice—and have fun in the process.
COLUMNS
9 Reader’s Guide/Beyond Checking Boxes: Re-envisioning PD in Schools
Anthony Rebora
72 Research Matters/“You’ve Got PD!”
Bryan Goodwin
We must rethink—not regurgitate—PD as it moves online.
74 Show & Tell: A Video Column/Taking Formative Assessment Virtual
Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
With some ingenuity, universal response systems can still work in remote and hybrid learning.
76 Leading Together/Rooting Out Inequity Through Collaborative Inquiry
Jill Harrison Berg
Schools must step up and become engines for equity.
78 Confronting Inequity/Seeing the Curriculum with Fresh Eyes
Matthew R. Kay
Race can be an important—and enriching—lens to apply to any unit of study.
80 ASCD Policy Priorities/Navigating the New Charters Divide
David Griffith
Thanks to the previous administration, President Biden inherits a divisive debate around charters.
DEPARTMENTS
6 Readers React
10 Advisory
70 Educational Leadership Themes 2021–2022
79 Index to Advertisers
82 Tell Us About
Readers share their favorite out-of-the-box ways to get helpful professional learning.
85 Whole Child Spotlight
Creating the Conditions for Continuous Professional Growth
86 ASCD Community in Action
88 EL Takeaways
EL ONLINE EXCLUSIVES
Empowering Teacher Growth
Joel E. Heckethorn, Michael Giovacchini, and Kristina J. Doubet
How one high school intentionally reframed professional learning around autonomy with structured support, sparking innovation that proved critical during the pandemic.
Connecting Professional Learning to the Classroom and to Our Students
Johannah Nikula, Pamela Buffington, Jill Neumayer DePiper, Josephine Louie, and Peter Tierney-Fife
A cyclical PD approach for math teachers with emergent bilingual students hinges on direct application of new learning to current instruction.