To identify the conditions that impact on the success of your professional learning
Aim
To identify the conditions that impact on the success of your professional learning.
Evidence and reflection
Think about some professional learning that you have engaged with over the past year or so, that you believe has had a positive impact on student learning. Now reflect on which features of that experience seem to align with those in the lists above. Consider the extent to which certain conditions seem to be associated with professional learning that you believe makes a positive difference to your practice. Importantly, you should now think about how you might try to ensure that future professional learning can incorporate key conditions likely to enhance its effectiveness.
Extension
Identify an area of your practice which you would like to develop. Make a list of the sources of professional learning that might help (e.g. staff interest group, national subject associations, universities, local authorities and school networks) and find out what they offer related to your focus. Do the opportunities provide the conditions that will help your professional learning? Plan for how you might engage with one or more of them.
While it is important to recognise that reviews of professional learning approaches are based on a unique aim with an individual set of protocols, they do nonetheless provide some helpful general guidance in terms of key conditions likely to result in worthwhile professional learning. What they don’t (and can’t) do, however, is suggest the precise approaches that will serve to satisfy these key conditions in particular contexts. The next section of the chapter therefore explores how we might go about identifying approaches to professional learning that are fit for their intended purpose(s).
