Beyond PD: Teacher Professional Learning in High-Performing Systems

At the end of the school year in the Surrey School District in British Columbia, a school principal prepares for her biennial performance conversation. The school principal knows what the focus of the conversation will be. The district superintendent, Jordan Tinney, is clear that school improvement must focus on specific structures of teacher professional learning. The school principal heads to her annual performance conversation knowing it will all focus on how much her school improvement plans, resourcing and school organisation have increased the effectiveness of professional learning.

In Singapore, a school professional learning leader works with classroom teachers to ensure their professional learning programs are actually improving classroom teaching so they can meet objectives set by their school principal. At the same time, teachers in Hong Kong have spent the year following subject-specific improvement strategies that have required extensive collaborative work and frequent classroom observations.

At the start of the year, a new teacher in Shanghai is nervous as she prepares to face her class of 45 students for the first time. Her learning curve over her first weeks, months and years will be steep. She is both challenged and supported by two mentors: one provides subject-specific guidance, the other more general pedagogical development. Her classroom teaching is observed on a regular basis and she observes her mentors’ classes so she can learn and work on those aspects of her teaching that are most critical for her students. In between classes she regularly attends research groups with other teachers to analyse specific research questions to improve teaching and learning in their classroom. The new teacher quickly learns she must continually develop her teaching expertise. She will be supported through this process but she knows her career will only progress if she develops high-level expertise in her subject area.

For all of these people, professional learning is central to their jobs. It is not an add-on. It is not something done on Friday afternoons or on a few days at the end of the school year. Teacher professional learning is how they all improve student learning, how they improve schools and how they are evaluated in their jobs. They work in systems that are organised around improvement strategies explicitly anchored in teacher professional learning. For many in education in Australia and around the world, this focus on teacher development is not surprising. Nor is it different. Australian school education has in a variety of ways at the national, state and system level implemented significant reforms to improve teaching. But across the board, these reforms have not had the impact we would all like. Key issues remain at either end of the performance spectrum; the number of our highperforming students is shrinking at an alarming rate and being from a poor family or community is still a large barrier that leads to worryingly low learning outcomes.

This report shows how we can improve the impact of the strategic direction Australia has already adopted. It draws lessons from education systems in British Columbia, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore on how to improve teacher professional learning. Two groups of reforms are highlighted to increase the effectiveness of reforms to improve teaching. First is a greater focus on the professional learning practices that the evidence has consistently shown appreciably lift teacher and student learning. Second is a system-wide strategy that makes professional learning effective in all schools. This takes professional learning reforms well outside traditional boundaries. It incorporates key reforms in school accountability and evaluation, leadership development, and resourcing and use of time in schools.