research in teacher professional development

• Search Menu
• Browse content in A - General Economics and Teaching
• Browse content in A1 - General Economics
• A12 - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
• A14 - Sociology of Economics
• Browse content in B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches
• Browse content in B4 - Economic Methodology
• B41 - Economic Methodology
• Browse content in C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods
• Browse content in C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
• C18 - Methodological Issues: General
• Browse content in C2 - Single Equation Models; Single Variables
• C21 - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions
• Browse content in C3 - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables
• C38 - Classification Methods; Cluster Analysis; Principal Components; Factor Models
• Browse content in C5 - Econometric Modeling
• C59 - Other
• Browse content in C8 - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
• C80 - General
• C81 - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
• C83 - Survey Methods; Sampling Methods
• Browse content in C9 - Design of Experiments
• C93 - Field Experiments
• Browse content in D - Microeconomics
• Browse content in D0 - General
• D02 - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
• D03 - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
• D04 - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation, and Evaluation
• Browse content in D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics
• D10 - General
• D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
• D14 - Household Saving; Personal Finance
• Browse content in D2 - Production and Organizations
• D22 - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
• D24 - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
• Browse content in D3 - Distribution
• D31 - Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
• Browse content in D6 - Welfare Economics
• D61 - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
• D62 - Externalities
• D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• Browse content in D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
• D72 - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
• D73 - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
• D74 - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
• Browse content in D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
• D83 - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
• D85 - Network Formation and Analysis: Theory
• D86 - Economics of Contract: Theory
• Browse content in D9 - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
• D91 - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
• D92 - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
• Browse content in E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Browse content in E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy
• E23 - Production
• E24 - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
• Browse content in E4 - Money and Interest Rates
• E42 - Monetary Systems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System; Payment Systems
• Browse content in E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
• E52 - Monetary Policy
• E58 - Central Banks and Their Policies
• Browse content in E6 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
• E60 - General
• E61 - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
• E62 - Fiscal Policy
• E65 - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
• Browse content in F - International Economics
• Browse content in F0 - General
• F01 - Global Outlook
• Browse content in F1 - Trade
• F10 - General
• F11 - Neoclassical Models of Trade
• F13 - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
• F14 - Empirical Studies of Trade
• F15 - Economic Integration
• Browse content in F2 - International Factor Movements and International Business
• F21 - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
• F22 - International Migration
• F23 - Multinational Firms; International Business
• Browse content in F3 - International Finance
• F32 - Current Account Adjustment; Short-Term Capital Movements
• F34 - International Lending and Debt Problems
• F35 - Foreign Aid
• F36 - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
• Browse content in F4 - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
• F41 - Open Economy Macroeconomics
• F42 - International Policy Coordination and Transmission
• F43 - Economic Growth of Open Economies
• Browse content in F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy
• F50 - General
• F52 - National Security; Economic Nationalism
• F53 - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations
• F55 - International Institutional Arrangements
• Browse content in F6 - Economic Impacts of Globalization
• F61 - Microeconomic Impacts
• F63 - Economic Development
• F66 - Labor
• Browse content in G - Financial Economics
• Browse content in G0 - General
• G01 - Financial Crises
• Browse content in G1 - General Financial Markets
• G10 - General
• G15 - International Financial Markets
• G18 - Government Policy and Regulation
• Browse content in G2 - Financial Institutions and Services
• G20 - General
• G21 - Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
• G22 - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
• G23 - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
• G28 - Government Policy and Regulation
• Browse content in G3 - Corporate Finance and Governance
• G32 - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
• G33 - Bankruptcy; Liquidation
• G38 - Government Policy and Regulation
• Browse content in H - Public Economics
• Browse content in H1 - Structure and Scope of Government
• H11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government
• Browse content in H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
• H20 - General
• H23 - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
• H25 - Business Taxes and Subsidies
• H26 - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
• H27 - Other Sources of Revenue
• Browse content in H3 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
• H31 - Household
• Browse content in H4 - Publicly Provided Goods
• H41 - Public Goods
• H43 - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
• Browse content in H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
• H52 - Government Expenditures and Education
• H53 - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
• H54 - Infrastructures; Other Public Investment and Capital Stock
• H55 - Social Security and Public Pensions
• H56 - National Security and War
• H57 - Procurement
• Browse content in H6 - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
• H60 - General
• H61 - Budget; Budget Systems
• Browse content in H7 - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
• H71 - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
• H75 - State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
• H77 - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism; Secession
• Browse content in H8 - Miscellaneous Issues
• H83 - Public Administration; Public Sector Accounting and Audits
• H84 - Disaster Aid
• Browse content in I - Health, Education, and Welfare
• Browse content in I0 - General
• I00 - General
• Browse content in I1 - Health
• I10 - General
• I12 - Health Behavior
• I15 - Health and Economic Development
• I18 - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
• Browse content in I2 - Education and Research Institutions
• I20 - General
• I21 - Analysis of Education
• I22 - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
• I24 - Education and Inequality
• I25 - Education and Economic Development
• I28 - Government Policy
• Browse content in I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
• I30 - General
• I31 - General Welfare
• I32 - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
• I38 - Government Policy; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
• Browse content in J - Labor and Demographic Economics
• Browse content in J0 - General
• J01 - Labor Economics: General
• J08 - Labor Economics Policies
• Browse content in J1 - Demographic Economics
• J10 - General
• J11 - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
• J12 - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
• J13 - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
• J15 - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
• J16 - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
• J17 - Value of Life; Forgone Income
• J18 - Public Policy
• Browse content in J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor
• J21 - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
• J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
• J23 - Labor Demand
• J24 - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
• J26 - Retirement; Retirement Policies
• J28 - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
• Browse content in J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
• J38 - Public Policy
• Browse content in J4 - Particular Labor Markets
• J48 - Public Policy
• Browse content in J5 - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
• J58 - Public Policy
• Browse content in J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
• J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
• J62 - Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility
• J63 - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
• J68 - Public Policy
• Browse content in J8 - Labor Standards: National and International
• J88 - Public Policy
• Browse content in K - Law and Economics
• Browse content in K2 - Regulation and Business Law
• K23 - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law
• Browse content in K3 - Other Substantive Areas of Law
• K34 - Tax Law
• Browse content in K4 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior
• K40 - General
• K42 - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
• Browse content in L - Industrial Organization
• Browse content in L1 - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
• L11 - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
• L14 - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation; Networks
• L16 - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics: Industrial Structure and Structural Change; Industrial Price Indices
• Browse content in L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
• L20 - General
• L23 - Organization of Production
• L25 - Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope
• L26 - Entrepreneurship
• Browse content in L3 - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise
• L33 - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprises and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out
• Browse content in L5 - Regulation and Industrial Policy
• L51 - Economics of Regulation
• L52 - Industrial Policy; Sectoral Planning Methods
• Browse content in L9 - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities
• L94 - Electric Utilities
• L97 - Utilities: General
• L98 - Government Policy
• Browse content in M - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics
• Browse content in M5 - Personnel Economics
• M53 - Training
• Browse content in N - Economic History
• Browse content in N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
• N35 - Asia including Middle East
• Browse content in N5 - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and Extractive Industries
• N55 - Asia including Middle East
• N57 - Africa; Oceania
• Browse content in N7 - Transport, Trade, Energy, Technology, and Other Services
• N77 - Africa; Oceania
• Browse content in O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth
• Browse content in O1 - Economic Development
• O10 - General
• O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
• O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
• O13 - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Other Primary Products
• O14 - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
• O15 - Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
• O16 - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
• O17 - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
• O18 - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
• O19 - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
• Browse content in O2 - Development Planning and Policy
• O20 - General
• O22 - Project Analysis
• O23 - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development
• O24 - Trade Policy; Factor Movement Policy; Foreign Exchange Policy
• O25 - Industrial Policy
• Browse content in O3 - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
• O31 - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
• O32 - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
• O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
• O34 - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
• O38 - Government Policy
• Browse content in O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
• O40 - General
• O41 - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
• O43 - Institutions and Growth
• O47 - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
• Browse content in O5 - Economywide Country Studies
• O55 - Africa
• O57 - Comparative Studies of Countries
• Browse content in P - Economic Systems
• Browse content in P1 - Capitalist Systems
• P14 - Property Rights
• Browse content in P2 - Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies
• P26 - Political Economy; Property Rights
• Browse content in P3 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions
• P30 - General
• Browse content in P4 - Other Economic Systems
• P43 - Public Economics; Financial Economics
• P48 - Political Economy; Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies
• Browse content in Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics
• Browse content in Q0 - General
• Q01 - Sustainable Development
• Browse content in Q1 - Agriculture
• Q10 - General
• Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
• Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness
• Q14 - Agricultural Finance
• Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
• Q16 - R&D; Agricultural Technology; Biofuels; Agricultural Extension Services
• Q17 - Agriculture in International Trade
• Q18 - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy
• Browse content in Q2 - Renewable Resources and Conservation
• Q25 - Water
• Browse content in Q3 - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation
• Q33 - Resource Booms
• Browse content in Q4 - Energy
• Q43 - Energy and the Macroeconomy
• Browse content in Q5 - Environmental Economics
• Q51 - Valuation of Environmental Effects
• Q52 - Pollution Control Adoption Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
• Q54 - Climate; Natural Disasters; Global Warming
• Q56 - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
• Q57 - Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services; Biodiversity Conservation; Bioeconomics; Industrial Ecology
• Q58 - Government Policy
• Browse content in R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics
• Browse content in R1 - General Regional Economics
• R11 - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
• R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity
• R13 - General Equilibrium and Welfare Economic Analysis of Regional Economies
• R14 - Land Use Patterns
• Browse content in R2 - Household Analysis
• R20 - General
• R23 - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
• R28 - Government Policy
• Browse content in R3 - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location
• R38 - Government Policy
• Browse content in R4 - Transportation Economics
• R40 - General
• R41 - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
• R48 - Government Pricing and Policy
• Browse content in R5 - Regional Government Analysis
• R52 - Land Use and Other Regulations
• Browse content in Y - Miscellaneous Categories
• Y8 - Related Disciplines
• Browse content in Z - Other Special Topics
• Browse content in Z1 - Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology
• Z13 - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Social and Economic Stratification
• Advance articles
• Author Guidelines
• Open Access
• About The World Bank Research Observer
• About the World Bank
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

• < Previous

Teacher Professional Development around the World: The Gap between Evidence and Practice

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Anna Popova, David K Evans, Mary E Breeding, Violeta Arancibia, Teacher Professional Development around the World: The Gap between Evidence and Practice, The World Bank Research Observer , Volume 37, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 107–136, https://doi.org/10.1093/wbro/lkab006

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Many teachers in low- and middle-income countries lack the skills to teach effectively, and professional development (PD) programs are the principal tool that governments use to upgrade those skills. At the same time, few PD programs are evaluated, and those that are evaluated show highly varying results. This paper proposes a set of indicators—the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument—to standardize reporting on teacher PD programs. An application of the instrument to 33 rigorously evaluated PD programs shows that programs that link participation to career incentives, have a specific subject focus, incorporate lesson enactment in the training, and include initial face-to-face training tend to show higher student learning gains. In qualitative interviews, program implementers also report follow-up visits as among the most effective characteristics of their professional development programs. This paper then uses the instrument to present novel data on a sample of 139 government-funded, at-scale professional development programs across 14 countries. The attributes of most at-scale teacher professional development programs differ sharply from those of programs that evidence suggests are effective, with fewer incentives to participate in PD, fewer opportunities to practice new skills, and less follow-up once teachers return to their classrooms.

Good teachers have a major impact on student performance, both over the course of the school year ( Araujo et al. 2016 ) and into adulthood ( Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff 2014 ). However, teachers in low- and middle-income countries often lack the skills they need to teach students effectively. Across seven African countries, only seven percent of fourth-grade teachers had the minimum knowledge necessary to teach language; in four countries, the statistic was zero percent. For math teaching, 68 percent had the minimum knowledge needed to teach math—higher than the seven percent for language, but still leaving one in three teachers with insufficient knowledge. Teachers also scored woefully low in terms of pedagogical knowledge—their ability to prepare a lesson, formulate questions that would elicit student knowledge effectively, and their performance in the classroom ( Bold et al. 2017 ).

The principal tool that countries across the income spectrum use to improve the knowledge and skills of their practicing teachers is professional development (PD), which refers to on-the-job training activities ranging from formal, lecture-style training to mentoring and coaching. However, few PD programs are rigorously evaluated, and among those that are, the evidence of their effectiveness is wildly mixed. Some programs are effective: training teachers to provide literacy instruction using students’ mother tongue in Uganda and training teachers to evaluate student performance more regularly and adjust teaching based on those evaluations in Liberia both had sizeable impacts on student reading ability ( Piper and Korda 2011 ; Kerwin and Thornton 2021 ). Others demonstrate opposite results: a large-scale, government-implemented PD program in China had zero impact on teacher knowledge, teaching practices, or student learning outcomes ( Loyalka et al. 2019 ), and a program that trained teachers to engage their middle school math students more actively in learning in Costa Rica resulted in worse learning outcomes for students ( Berlinski and Busso 2017 ). Indeed, there is much more variation in effectiveness across teacher training programs than across education programs more broadly ( McEwan 2015 ; Evans and Popova 2016a ). With this limited and highly variable evidence, policymakers and practitioners may be left puzzled as to how to structure teacher PD programs effectively.

In this paper, we propose a set of indicators—the In-service Teacher Training Survey Instrument, or ITTSI—to allow comparisons across teacher PD programs with varying impacts. On average, existing studies of PD programs only report on about half of these indicators. We supplement that information through interviews with implementors of evaluated PD programs. We compare the characteristics of 33 rigorously evaluated PD programs to identify which characteristics are associated with larger student learning gains. We then gather data from 139 government-funded, at-scale PD programs across 14 countries. Like most at-scale government programs, none of these programs have been evaluated rigorously. We compare the two samples to examine whether the PD programs that most teachers actually experience exhibit similar characteristics to those of PD programs that have been evaluated and shown to produce sizeable student learning gains.

When we apply our instrument to evaluated PD programs, results suggest that programs deliver high student learning gains when they link participation in PD to incentives such as promotion or salary implications, when they have a specific subject focus, when teachers practice enacting lessons during the training, and when training has at least an initial face-to-face aspect. Meanwhile, program implementers highlight two characteristics of effective training in interviews: mentoring follow-up visits after the PD training, and complementary materials such as structured lesson plans to help teachers apply what they have learned during PD.

When we subsequently use the ITTSI to characterize a sample of at-scale, government-funded PD programs around the world, we find a divergence in the characteristics common to these programs and those that typify evaluated programs that were found to be effective. Relative to top-performing PD programs—defined as those found to be the most effective at increasing student learning—very few at-scale PD programs are linked to any sort of career opportunities, such as promotion or salary implications. Similarly, in-school follow-up support and including time to practice with other teachers is less common among at-scale PD programs. This highlights a substantial gap between the kind of teacher PD supported by research and that currently being provided by many government-funded, at-scale programs.

These results have implications for both researchers and policymakers. For researchers, future evaluations will contribute much more to an understanding of how to improve teachers’ skills if they report more details of the characteristics of the PD programs. Our proposed set of indicators can serve as a guide. For policymakers, at-scale PD programs should incorporate more aspects of successful, evaluated PD programs, such as incentives, practice, and follow-up in-school support. For both, more programs can be evaluated at scale, using government delivery systems, in order to improve the skills of teachers in the future.

Conceptual Framework

The defining attributes of teacher professional development programs fall principally into three categories. The first is the content of the PD program: What is taught? The second is the delivery of the PD program: Who is teaching, when, and for how long? The third is the organization of the program beyond content and delivery: What are the scale and resources of the program? Are there incentives for participation? Was it designed based on a diagnostic of teachers? In this section, we discuss the theory behind each of these three categories.

On the content, PD programs focused on subject-specific pedagogy are likely to be most effective. General pedagogical knowledge—i.e., broad strategies of classroom management and organization—may contribute to student learning, driving the recent development of a range of classroom observation instruments ( La Paro and Pianta 2003 ; Molina et al. 2018 ). However, different subjects require radically different pedagogies ( Shulman 1986 ; Villegas-Reimers 2003 ). A highly scripted approach may work to teach early grade reading, whereas teaching science or civics in later grades—for example—may require more flexible approaches. PD programs that focus on arming teachers with subject-specific pedagogy are thus likely to make the largest contribution to student learning.

With respect to the delivery, the method, trainers, duration, and location of instruction all play a role. First, because working, professional teachers are the students in PD, principles of adult education are relevant to the method of instruction. Adult education tends to work best with clear applications rather than a theoretical focus ( Cardemil 2001 ; Knowles, Holton, and Swanson 2005 ). The method of instruction should include concrete, realistic goals ( Baker and Smith 1999 ) and the teaching of formative evaluation so that teachers can effectively evaluate their own progress towards their teaching goals ( Bourgeois and Nizet 1997 ). Second, the quality of trainers—i.e., those providing the PD—is crucial to learning ( Knowles, Holton, and Swanson 2005 ). In terms of the delivery of PD, this calls into question the common cascade model of PD in low-income environments, in which both information and pedagogical ability may be diluted as a master trainer trains another individual as a trainer, who may go on to train another trainer below her, and so forth.

Third, on the duration of instruction, there is no theoretical consensus on exactly how long training should last, although there is suggestive empirical evidence in the literature in favor of sustained contact over a significant period of time and against brief, one-time workshops ( Desimone 2009 ). Fourth, on the location of instruction, teacher PD in the school (“embedded”) is likely to be most effective so that participating teachers can raise concrete problems that they face in the local environment, and they can also receive feedback on actual teaching ( Wood and McQuarrie 1999 ). However, this will depend on the environment. In very difficult teaching environments, some degree of training outside the school may facilitate focus on the part of the trainees ( Kraft and Papay 2014 ).

Finally, the organization of the PD—which includes overarching aspects such as who is organizing it, for whom, and how—provides an important backdrop when we consider any PD program. This includes aspects such as the scale, cost, and targeting of the program. In general, it is predictably easier to provide high-quality PD through smaller scale, higher cost programs that provide more tailored attention to a given teacher. In terms of targeting, teacher PD will work best if it adjusts at different points in the teachers’ careers: One would not effectively teach a brand-new teacher in the same way as one would train a teacher with 20 years of experience ( Huberman 1989 ). Teachers see their greatest natural improvements in the first five years of teaching, which may be an indicator of greater skill plasticity, so there may be benefits to leveraging that time ( TNTP 2015 ).

What Works in High-Income Countries?

A full review of the literature in high-income countries is beyond the scope of this study. However, it may be useful to highlight recent work on in-service teacher PD from the United States—which spends almost $18,000 per teacher and 19 days of teacher time on training each year ( TNTP 2015 )—and other high-income countries, in order to ensure that low- and middle-income countries are not ignoring well-established evidence. Several promising themes that emerge from this work are the importance of making PD specific and practical, providing sustained follow-up support for teachers, and embedding it in the curriculum.

Specific and practical teacher PD finds support from multiple reviews of teacher PD studies in high-income countries, which conclude that concrete, classroom-based programs make the most difference to teachers ( Darling-Hammond et al. 2009 ; Walter and Briggs 2012 ). More recently, a meta-analysis of 196 randomized evaluations of education interventions—not just PD—in the United States that measure student test scores as an outcome examined the impact of both “general” and “managed” professional development, relative to other interventions ( Fryer 2017 ). General PD may focus on classroom management or increasing the rigor of teachers’ knowledge, whereas managed professional development prescribes a specific method, with detailed instructions on implementation and follow-up support. On average, managed PD increased student test scores by 2.5 times (0.052 standard deviations) as much as general PD and was at least as effective as the combined average of all school-based interventions. A recent review of nearly 2,000 impact estimates from 747 randomized controlled trials of education interventions in the United States proposes that an effect size of 0.05 be considered a “medium” effect size, higher than the average effect size, weighted by study sample size ( Kraft 2020 ), which suggests that these are not trivial impacts.

The importance of sustained follow-up support is echoed by another U.S.-focused review, which found that PD programs with significant contact hours (between 30 and 100 in total) over the course of six to twelve months were more effective at raising student test scores ( Yoon et al. 2007 ). Likewise, a narrative review of U.S. studies concluded that the most effective programs are not “one-shot workshops”: they are sustained, intense, and embedded in the curriculum ( Darling-Hammond et al. 2009 ).

Despite these conclusions, the experimental or quasi-experimental evidence is thin, even in high-income countries. The meta-analysis of 196 evaluations of education interventions included just nine PD studies ( Fryer 2017 ), and another review of 1,300 PD studies identified just nine that had pre- and post-test data and some sort of control group ( Yoon et al. 2007 ). Similarly, a review of PD in mathematics found more than 600 studies of math PD interventions, but only 32 used any research design to measure effectiveness, and only five of those were high-quality randomized trials ( Gersten et al. 2014 ). The question of what drives effective teacher PD remains understudied, even in high-income environments.

We expect teachers in lower and middle-income countries to learn in fundamentally similar ways to their high-income counterparts. However, lower resource contexts are typically characterized by more binding cost constraints and lower teacher and coach pedagogical capacity. These challenges may make certain elements of PD programs more and less relevant in lower-income contexts. Teachers and coaches in low- and middle-income countries may benefit from more prescriptive instructions on implementation and, while they too require ongoing follow-up as part of PD, this may need to be provided in lower-cost forms, whether in group sessions, using technology for remote coaching, or training school principals and experienced peer teachers as coaches.

To understand which characteristics of PD programs are associated with student test score gains, and to analyze the degree to which these effective characteristics are incorporated into at-scale PD programs in practice, we first developed a standardized instrument to characterize in-service teacher training. Second, we applied this instrument to already evaluated PD programs to understand which PD characteristics are associated with student learning gains. Third, we applied the survey instrument to a sample of at-scale PD programs to see how these programs line up with what the evidence suggests works in teacher training. The information we present thus comes from two different samples of PD programs: One sample of evaluated PD programs, those with impact evaluations that include student assessment results; and one sample of at-scale , government-funded PD programs. 1 The remainder of this section introduces the instrument briefly before describing its application to each of the two samples.

The In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument (ITTSI)

The ITTSI was designed based on the conceptual framework and empirical literature characterized in the previous sections, as well as on the authors’ prior experience studying in-service teacher PD. We drafted an initial list of 51 key indicators to capture details about a range of program characteristics falling into three main categories: Organization, Content, and Delivery, paralleling the three elements of our conceptual framework ( fig. 1 ). We supplement those categories with a fourth category, Perceptions, which we added to collect qualitative data from program implementors.

Summary of the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument (ITTSI)

Source : Authors’ summary of the elements of the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument, as detailed in supplementary online appendices A1 and A2 .

Taking each of these in turn, the Organization section includes items such as the type of organization responsible for the design and implementation of a given teacher training program, to whom the program is targeted, what (if any) complementary materials it provides, the scale of the program, and its cost. The Content section includes indicators capturing the type of knowledge or skills that a given program aims to build among beneficiary teachers, such as whether the program focuses on subject content (and if so, which subject), pedagogy, new technology, classroom management, counseling, assessment, or some combination.

Delivery focuses on indicators capturing program implementation details, such as whether it is delivered through a cascade model, the profile of the trainers who directly train the teachers, the location of the training, the size of the sessions, and the time division between lectures, practice, and other activities. Finally, the Perceptions section includes indicators capturing program implementers’ own perceptions of which elements were responsible for any positive impacts and which were popular or unpopular among teachers. We piloted the draft instrument by using it to collect data on a sample of evaluated programs, and validated its ability to accurately characterize the details of PD programs by sharing our results with a series of expert researchers and practitioners in teacher PD. We updated the indicators in light of this feedback, resulting in a final version of the instrument, which includes 70 indicators plus three pieces of metadata. Further information on the instrument can be found in the supplementary online appendices: Appendix A1 provides a more detailed description of instrument development; appendix A2 presents the final instrument (ITTSI); and appendix A3 presents the Brief In-Service Teacher Training Instrument (BITTSI), a supplementary instrument we developed containing a subset of the 13 most critical questions from the ITTSI based on our reading of the literature.

The ITTSI does not collect extensive data about the broader educational context. Context includes teacher policies (e.g., pre-service training and the structure of the teacher career), other education policies, and the current state of education (e.g., learning and absenteeism rates). Context matters for the impact of teacher PD programs. As a simple example, in a setting where student absenteeism is extremely high, teacher PD programs may have a limited impact on student learning due to few hours of contact between teachers and students. That said, certain principles of teacher PD may translate across cultures, even if the applications vary. Professionals need practice to master skills across contexts, so giving teachers the opportunity to practice lessons during training may be valuable across contexts, even if how they do that may vary. Other survey instruments have been developed and tested broadly to gather a wide range of data on the education system, notably the World Bank's Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) ( Rogers and Demas 2013 ). For a rich view of teacher PD in context, the ITTSI could be complemented with the SABER instrument or other data about the education system.

Applying the ITTSI to Evaluated PD Programs

We searched the existing literature on in-service teacher PD in low- and middle-income countries to identify a sample of PD programs that had been evaluated for their impact on student learning. Our inclusion criteria for the search were impact evaluations of primary and secondary education interventions in low- and middle-income countries that (a) focused primarily on in-service teacher PD or included this as a major component of a broader program, and (b) reported impacts of the program on student test scores in math, language, or science. We included both published and unpublished papers and did not restrict by year of authorship.

In order to identify papers fulfilling the above criteria, we searched a range of databases in 2016 . 2 The search yielded 6,049 results and automatically refined the results by removing exact duplicates from the original results, which reduced the number of results to 4,294. To this we added 20 impact evaluations which mention teacher PD from a recent review ( Evans and Popova 2016a ). We examined the 4,314 results from both sources to exclude articles that—from their title and abstract—were clearly not impact evaluations of teacher training programs. This review process excluded 4,272 results and left 42 full articles to be assessed for eligibility. After going through the full texts, another 18 papers were excluded as the full text revealed that they did not meet the inclusion criteria. This yielded 23 papers, which evaluated 26 different PD programs. In February 2018, we updated this original sample with full articles published between 2016 and 2018 which fit the inclusion criteria. This resulted in seven new papers and teacher PD programs for a total of 30 papers evaluating 33 programs. The search process is detailed in  fig. 2 . The 30 papers are listed in supplementary online appendix A4 .

Search Process and Results for Evaluated Professional Development Programs

Source : Constructed by the authors based on the search described in the text.

Note : The 30 papers documenting the evaluation of the final 33 programs are listed in supplementary online appendix A4 .

Data collection and coding for the sample of 33 evaluated programs comprised two phases. The first of these phases consisted of carefully reviewing the impact evaluation studies and coding the information they provided. The draft version of the instrument for which we collected data included 51 indicators in total, and on average, information on 26 (51 percent) of these indicators was reported in the impact evaluations. Crucially, the amount of program information reported across the impact evaluations varies noticeably by topic ( table 1 ). Sixty-four percent of details concerning the organization of teacher training programs—such as whether the program was designed by a government or by a non-governmental organization (NGO)—can be extracted from the evaluations. In contrast, on average, only 47 percent of information concerning program content and 42 percent of information concerning program delivery is reported.

Data Available on Evaluated Programs from Studies vs. Interviews

Source : Constructed by the authors based on the application of the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument items ( supplementary online appendix A2 ) to the 33 professional development programs identified ( supplementary online appendix A4 ).

Note : Percentage data collected refers to the percentage of indicators for which data were collected across the 33 programs in our evaluated sample. This is calculated by the number of programs for which each indicator has data, summed for every indicator in a given section (or total) and divided by the number of indicators in that section (or total), and finally divided by the 33 programs.

The second phase of data collection sought to fill this gap in reported data by interviewing individuals involved in the actual implementation of each program. To do this, we emailed the authors of each of the impact evaluations in our sample, asking them to connect us with the program implementers. After three attempts to contact the implementers, we received responses from authors for 25 of the 33 programs. We contacted all of the individuals to whom the authors referred us—who in many cases directed us to more relevant counterparts—and were eventually able to hold interviews with program implementers for 18 of the 33 programs. 3 The interviews loosely followed the survey instrument, but included open-ended questions and space for program implementers to provide any additional program information that they perceived as important.

The ITTSI data were gathered retrospectively for this study, which means that in most cases, the evaluation results (and so whether or not the program was effective) were likely to have been known to the interviewee. We propose three reasons that this should not pose a substantive problem for the quality of the data. First, most of the indicators have no normative response. Whether a program is government- or researcher-designed or implemented, whether it has a subject focus or a general pedagogy focus, or whether or not it has a distance learning element have no obvious “right” answers. Second, the survey was administered to program implementers, who usually were not part of the team of researchers who evaluated the program, so they had little stake in confirming research results. Third, the survey had low stakes: interviewees knew that we were independent researchers doing a synthesis review. In some cases, the PD program being discussed no longer existed in the same form. For future PD studies, these data could be collected at the design stage of programs.

For the 18 programs for which we conducted interviews, we were able to collect information for an average of 50 out of the 51 (98 percent) indicators of interest. Consequently, conducting interviews decreased the differences in data availability across categories. The pooled average of indicators for which we had information after conducting interviews (for interviewed and not interviewed programs combined) increased to 79 percent for Organization indicators, 68 percent of Content indicators, and 72 percent of Delivery indicators ( table 1 ).

For our sample of evaluated in-service teacher PD programs, we analyze which characteristics of teacher training programs are associated with the largest improvements in student learning, as measured by test score gains. We conduct both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The analytical strategy for the quantitative analysis essentially consists of comparing means of student learning gains for programs with and without key characteristics, using a bivariate linear regression to derive the magnitude and statistical significance of differences in means. We do not carry out multivariate regression analysis because of the small sample; thus, these results are only suggestive, as multiple characteristics of programs may be correlated. Because we are testing each coefficient separately, we are not able to test the relative value of coefficients, so differences in point estimates are only suggestive.

In preparation for this analysis, we standardize the impact estimates for each of the programs. We convert the program characteristic variables to indicator variables wherever possible to facilitate comparability of coefficients. Although our sample of impact evaluations has a common outcome—impact on student test scores—these are reported on different scales across studies, based on different sample sizes. 4 We standardize these effects and the associated standard errors in order to be able to compare them directly. Supplementary online appendix A5 provides mathematical details of the standardization.

Turning to the independent variables, as originally coded, the 51 indicators for which we collected information capturing various design and implementation characteristics of the PD programs took a number of forms. These consisted of indicator variables (e.g., the intervention provides textbooks alongside training = 0 or 1), categorical variables (e.g., the primary focus of the training was subject content [= 1], pedagogy [= 2], new technology [= 3]), continuous variables (e.g., the proportion of training hours spent practicing with students), and string variables capturing open-ended perceptions (e.g., which program elements do you think were most effective?). To maximize the comparability of output from our regression analysis we convert all categorical and continuous variables into indicator variables. 5

We then conduct our bivariate regressions on this set of complete indicator variables with continuous impact estimates on test scores as the outcome variable for each regression. Because of the limitations associated with running a series of bivariate regressions on a relatively small sample of evaluations, we propose the following robustness check. First, we estimate robust Eicker-Huber-White (EHW) standard errors as our default standard errors (reported in  tables 2 – 4 ) and assess significance according to p -values associated with these. Second, we estimate bootstrapped standard errors and the associated p -values. Third, we run Fisher randomization tests to calculate exact p -values, a common approach in the context of small samples. 6 We report significance under each of these methods separately and report results as robust if they are significant under at least two of the three methods, and if the significant effect is driven by at least two observations—i.e., the results are not explained by a single PD program.

Organization – Bivariate Regressions with Robustness Checks

Source : Constructed by the authors based on data extracted from 33 professional development programs ( supplementary online appendix A4 ) using the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument, and analyzed by regression, as described in the text.

Note : ∗ p  < 0.10, ∗∗ p  < 0.05, ∗∗∗ p  < 0.01 correspond to the significance of p- val ues of robust standard Noteerrors. § corresponds to significance at the 10 percent level or higher for bootstrapped standard errors. † corresponds to significance at the 10 percent level or higher for the Fisher Randomization tests. Numbers specified in parentheses in variable labels are the reported medians for dummy variables in which the variable equals 1 if greater than the median. Total programs refers to the number of programs that report whether or not they have the characteristic. The robust column includes an X if the finding is statistically significant across at least two methods and if the finding is driven by two or more evaluations (i.e., not a single evaluation).

Content – Bivariate Regressions with Robustness Checks

Note : ∗ p  < 0.10, ∗∗ p  < 0.05, ∗∗∗ p  < 0.01 correspond to the significance of p -values of robust standard errors. § corresponds to significance at the 10 percent level or higher for bootstrapped standard errors. † corresponds to significance at the 10 percent level or higher for the Fisher Randomization tests. Total programs refers to the number of programs that report whether or not they have the characteristic. The robust column includes an X if the finding is statistically significant across at least two methods and if the finding is driven by two or more evaluations (i.e., not a single evaluation).

Delivery – Bivariate Regressions with Robustness Checks

Note : ∗ p  < 0.10, ∗∗ p  < 0.05, ∗∗∗ p  < 0.01 correspond to the significance of p -values of robust standard errors. § corresponds to significance at the 10 percent level or higher for bootstrapped standard errors. † corresponds to significance at the 10 percent level or higher for the Fisher Randomization tests. Numbers specified in parentheses in variable labels are the reported medians for dummy variables in which the variable equals 1 if greater than the median. Total programs refers to the number of programs that report whether or not they have the characteristic. The robust column includes an X if the finding is statistically significant across at least two methods and if the finding is driven by two or more evaluations (i.e., not a single evaluation).

We supplement this regression analysis with a qualitative analysis of what works, relying on the self-reported perceptions of program implementers along three dimensions: (a) Which program elements they identified as most responsible for any positive impacts on student learning; (b) which elements, if any, teachers particularly liked; and (c) which elements, if any, teachers particularly disliked.

Applying the ITTSI to At-Scale PD Programs

The sampling process for at-scale programs is detailed in  fig. 3 . To obtain a sample of at-scale, government-funded PD programs across the world, we first identified four to five countries in each region where the World Bank has operations. 7 We worked with regional education managers at the World Bank in each region to select countries in which government counterparts and World Bank country teams had an interest in learning more about in-service teacher PD programs. We made clear that the exercise was appropriate for countries with any level of teacher PD, not specific to countries with recent reforms or innovations. The final set of countries sampled included Burkina Faso, Cambodia, El Salvador, The Gambia, Guinea, India (Bihar state), Jordan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mauritania, Mexico (Guanajato, Oaxaca, and Puebla, and a national PD program for middle school teachers), Moldova, Niger, and the Russian Federation.

Sampling Process for At-Scale Professional Development Programs

Source : Constructed by the authors to reflect the process to identify at-scale professional development programs, as described in the text.

We then obtained permission from the Ministry of Education (MoE) or other relevant government counterparts in each country and worked with them to complete a roster, or listing, of all teacher PD programs conducted between 2012 and 2016. 8 The roster, available in supplementary online appendix A6 , was created along with the ITTSI instrument and collects the following information about each of the teacher PD programs that received government funding: program name; program coordinator's name and contact information; the number of teachers trained; and the types of teachers targeted (e.g., pre-primary, primary, or secondary school teachers). In some countries, such as Mexico and India, where policymaking about teacher PD happens at the state level, we worked with individual states.

After receiving completed roster information about teacher PD programs in a country/state, we used the roster to select a sample of teacher PD programs to interview. In each country/state, we chose the sample by selecting the 10 largest teacher PD programs in terms of teacher coverage, defined as the number of teachers reached by the program during its most recent year of implementation. Of the 10 sampled programs for each country/state, the full ITTSI was administered to the two largest programs targeting primary school teachers and the largest program that targeted secondary school teachers. The brief version of the instrument, the BITTSI, was administered in the remaining seven programs in the country/state. In total, 48 at-scale programs completed the ITTSI and 91 at-scale programs completed the BITTSI across 14 countries.

We applied the ITTSI survey through a combination of phone interviews with and online surveys of PD program coordinators. In a few instances (in The Gambia, El Salvador, and Mexico), depending on the preferences of the program coordinator and their primary language, program coordinators were given the option of completing the ITTSI questionnaire online. For the majority of programs, however, we held phone interviews with program coordinators, in which we asked them the questions included in the ITTSI survey items directly and filled out the instrument ourselves with their responses.

The ITTSI survey applied to the sample of at-scale programs consists of 70 indicators. We were able to collect information for an average of 66 of the 70 (94 percent) indicators of interest for the 48 at-scale teacher PD programs to which the full ITTSI survey was applied, and for 26.5 of the 27 (97 percent) indicators—derived from 13 questions—for the 91 programs to which the BITTSI was applied.

For the sample of at-scale PD programs, we compare the average of observed characteristics of at-scale teacher PD programs with the average for evaluated PD programs that resulted in the largest improvements in student learning (“top performers”), as measured by student test score gains. To determine the characteristics of “top performers,” we ranked all evaluated programs, using their standardized impact on student test scores. We then selected the top half of programs (16 programs, all of which displayed positive impacts), and calculated the average value of program indicators for those “top performers.” We compare them to the means of at-scale PD programs in order to better understand the gap between at-scale PD practices and the best practices of top-performing PD programs.

This section characterizes the specific characteristics of teacher PD programs that successfully improve student learning in low- and middle-income countries and how common these characteristics are across at-scale, government-funded programs. First, we present the results of our quantitative and qualitative analyses examining which PD characteristics are associated with large gains in student learning for the sample of evaluated programs. Second, we present descriptive statistics from the sample of at-scale PD programs and from the top-performing PD programs in the evaluated sample to shed light on how they differ in terms of those PD characteristics found to be associated with positive impacts on student learning.

Which PD Characteristics are Most Associated with Student Learning Among Evaluated Programs?

We discuss, for each of our categories—Organization, Content, and Delivery—those characteristics we observe to be most associated with student learning gains.  Tables 2 – 4 present the results of our bivariate regressions for each of these categories in turn. In each case, we report the results with the three different methods of calculating significance as well as an indicator of robustness.

Among Organization ( table 2 ), two characteristics are robustly associated with significant gains in student learning. These include linking career opportunities (improved status, promotion, or salary) to PD programs and targeting training programs based on teachers’ years of experience. First, in teacher PD programs where participation has no implications for promotion, salary, or status increases, student learning is 0.12 standard deviations lower (significant at 95 percent). In other words, programs that do link participation to career incentives have higher effectiveness. 9 Second, targeting participant teachers by their years of experience is associated with 0.10 standard deviations higher student learning (significant at 90 percent). This is driven by two programs: the Balsakhi program in rural India, which trains women from the local community who have completed secondary school to provide remedial education to students falling behind ( Banerjee et al. 2007 ); and the Science teacher training program in Argentina, which trains teachers in different structured curricula and coaching techniques and finds that coaching is only effective for less experienced teachers ( Albornoz et al. 2018 ). Indeed, these are the only two programs out of the 33 that explicitly targeted teachers based on their experience, both of which resulted in student learning gains. In addition, the provision of complementary materials such as storybooks and other reading materials (e.g., flashcards or word banks) have large coefficients associated with improving student learning (0.11 and 0.13 standard deviations), although these are not statistically significant.

Among the Content variables ( table 3 ), programs with a specific subject focus result in higher learning gains than more general programs. Specifically, programs with no subject focus show 0.24 standard deviations lower impact on student learning (significant at 99 percent). A deeper look reveals that within focus areas, programs that are not focused on a given academic subject—such as those focused on counseling—are associated with 0.2 lower standard deviations in student learning (significant at 99 percent). Lastly, when a teacher PD program involves teaching practice through lesson enactment, it is associated with a 0.10 standard deviation increase in student learning (significant at 90 percent).

Turning to Delivery characteristics ( table 4 ), three characteristics of teacher PD programs are robust. First, teacher PD programs that provide consecutive days of face-to-face teacher training are associated with a 0.14 standard deviation increase in student learning (significant at 99 percent). Second, holding face-to-face training at a central location—such as a hotel or government administrative building (as opposed to a university or training center, which was the omitted category)—is associated with a 0.13 lower standard deviation in student learning (significant at 90 percent). Third, teacher PD training programs that are conducted remotely using distance learning are associated with a 0.10 standard deviation decrease in student learning (significant at 90 percent). In alignment with recent literature highlighting the overly theoretical nature of many training programs as an explanation for their limited effects on student learning—as well as the above finding that training programs that involve teaching practice are associated with 0.16 larger gains in student learning—the proportion of training time spent practicing with other teachers is highly correlated with learning impacts (although not consistently statistically significant). Also, the inclusion of follow-up visits to review material taught in the initial training—as opposed to visits for monitoring purposes alone or no follow-up visits—is associated with a 0.14 standard deviation higher program impact on student learning (not significant, but one of the largest coefficients). These findings support the literature that subject-focused teacher PD programs with consecutive days of face-to-face training that include time for teachers to practice with one another, are associated with improved student learning outcomes.

We supplement the quantitative results with an analysis of self-reported perceptions by the implementers of the evaluated programs. These concern the characteristics of their programs which they believe are most responsible for any positive effects on student learning, as well as those elements which were popular and unpopular among the beneficiary teachers. We elicited these perceptions using open-ended questions and then tallied the number of program implementers that mentioned a given program element in their response, albeit not necessarily using the exact same language as other respondents. These responses come from 18 interviewees, so they should be taken as suggestive. That said, the results broadly align with the quantitative results: Five of 18 interviewees—tied for the most common response—mentioned that mentoring follow-up visits were a crucial component in making their training work. Similarly, five of the 18 interviewees discuss the importance of having complementary materials, such as structured lessons or scripted materials that provide useful references in the classroom and help to guide teachers during the training sessions. The next most commonly reported elements were engaging teachers for their opinions and ideas—either through discussion or text messages—and designing the program in response to local context, building on what teachers already do and linking to everyday experiences: both were mentioned by four of 18 interviewees.

We also asked the program implementers about the program characteristics that they believed teachers liked and disliked the most about their training programs and, interestingly, we only found two common responses for what teachers particularly liked and one common response for what they disliked. 10 Seven of the 18 interviewees reported that the part of their program that teachers most enjoyed was that it was fun and engaging (or some variation of that). In other words, teachers appreciated that certain programs were interactive and involved participation and discussion rather than passive learning. In addition to having “fun” teacher PD programs, five of the 18 interviewees suggested that teachers especially liked the program materials provided to them. Similarly, in terms of unpopular program elements, four of the 18 program implementers we interviewed reported that teachers disliked the amount of time taken by participating in the training programs, which they perceived as excessive.

What Do We Learn from At-Scale PD Programs?

Government-funded, at-scale teacher PD programs have a number of characteristics in common ( supplementary online appendix tables A7.1–A7.3 ). The vast majority are designed by government (80 percent) and implemented by government (90 percent). Almost all provide materials to accompany the PD (96 percent), and most include at least some lesson enactment (73 percent) and development of materials (73 percent). Most have a subject focus (92 percent) and include an initial period of face-to-face training for several days (85 percent). Most do not formally target teachers by subject (only 19 percent do), grade (31 percent), or years of experience (13 percent), and few have negative consequences if teachers are poorly evaluated (17 percent). These at-scale programs differ sharply from programs that are evaluated in general, as well as from top-performing evaluated programs specifically. We provide a full list of average characteristics of at-scale programs and all evaluated programs (not just top-performers) in supplementary online appendix tables A7.1–A7.3 .

Our principal focus in this section is how at-scale programs compare to evaluated programs that deliver relatively high gains in student learning. We assess the top half of programs (N = 16) from the sample of evaluated programs by selecting those characteristics that produced the largest standard deviation increases in student assessment scores. In  table 5 , we compare the means of at-scale programs and top-performing, evaluated programs. We focus specifically on the characteristics shown to have a statistically significant relationship with student learning outcomes and those with large coefficients, identified for interest (as identified in  tables 2 – 4 ).

Comparison of Means of At-Scale Programs and Top-Performing, Evaluated Programs

Source : Constructed by authors, comparing summary statistics for the top performing professional development (PD) programs among rigorously evaluated PD programs to at-scale PD programs.

Note : For the full list of statistics, see supplementary online appendix Tables A7.1–A7.3 .

Regarding Organization ( table 5 ), two key characteristics—whether or not the training is linked to career opportunities and whether or not the program targets teachers based on their years of experience—are robustly associated with improved student learning gains. There are notable and substantive differences between top-performing PD programs and the sample of at-scale PD programs when it comes to providing incentives; 88 percent of top-performing PD programs link training to status or to new career opportunities such as promotion or salary, as compared to only 55 percent of at-scale programs. Our results suggest that without incentives, training may not have a meaningful impact. Furthermore, top-performing programs and at-scale PD programs are similar in the degree to which they target teachers based on their years of experience. For instance, 13.3 percent of top-performers and 12.5 percent of at-scale programs target teachers based on their experience. Other notable organizational characteristics include the provision of complementary materials such as storybooks and reading materials. Top-performing PD programs and at-scale PD programs are similar in the amount of materials they provide, but our results suggest that the kinds of complementary materials may differ somewhat. For instance, only 12.5 percent and 21 percent of at-scale programs provide storybooks and reading materials, respectively—materials correlated with student learning gains—as compared to 36 percent and 43 percent of evaluated programs.

Turning next to Content ( table 5 ), top-performing PD programs and at-scale PD programs perform similarly. In both instances, the majority of programs include subject content and subject-specific pedagogy as either a primary or secondary focus. Few programs—none of the top performers—and only eight percent of at-scale programs lack a subject focus. Moreover, no top-performing programs and few at-scale programs (fewer than six percent) focus on general training in areas such as counseling or providing training on how to use a specific tool—types of training that are statistically linked to lower gains in student learning.

Finally, Delivery characteristics ( table 5 ) include whether or not there are consecutive days of face-to-face training, training location, the amount of time teachers spend practicing with one another, and follow-up visits. Specifically, 100 percent of top-performing programs include consecutive days of face-to-face training as compared to 85 percent of evaluated programs. Our research further suggests that the location of PD training programs may influence program effectiveness, and training held at central locations such as hotels or conference rooms (as opposed to universities or training centers) may be less effective. Currently 73 percent of at-scale, government-funded programs are held at central locations as compared to only 38 percent of evaluated programs.

Follow-up visits with teachers and the amount of time teachers spend practicing with other teachers during the training program are shown to be positively correlated with large coefficients (albeit not statistically significant) on student learning. In both instances, top-performing PD programs include more follow-up visits (five versus two median visits among programs with visits) and spend more time allowing teachers to practice with other teachers (40 percent versus 16 percent of training time) than do at-scale programs. 11 Results of our analysis suggest that training may be more effective if there are follow-up visits. This is an imperative finding when comparing top-performing PD programs, in which 85 percent include follow-up visits, with government-funded, at-scale PD programs, in which only half of programs include follow-up visits. Also, in top-performing PD programs, teachers spend more time practicing what they have learned with other teachers (40 percent of overall training time) relative to at-scale programs (only 16 percent). An existing body of research suggests that when teachers have opportunities to practice the new skills they acquire in PD programs, they are more likely to adopt these new skills in their classrooms ( Wiley and Yoon 1995 ; Wenglinsky 2000 ; Angrist and Lavy 2001 ; Borko 2004 ).

Governments spend enormous amounts of time and money on in-service professional development. Many countries have multiple in-service PD programs running simultaneously, as evidenced by our sample of at-scale PD programs. Many go unevaluated and may be ineffective. This paper makes three major contributions: first, it reveals broad weaknesses in reporting on teacher PD interventions. There are almost as many program types as there are programs, with variations in subject and pedagogical focus, hours spent, capacity of the trainers, and a host of other variables. Yet reporting on these often seeks to reduce them to a small handful of variables, and each scholar decides independently which variables are most relevant to report. We propose a standard set of indicators—the ITTSI—that would encourage consistency and thoroughness in reporting. Academic journals may continue to pressure authors to report limited information about the interventions, wishing instead to reserve space for statistical analysis. However, authors could easily include the full set of indicators in an appendix attached to the paper or online.

Second, this paper demonstrates that some characteristics of teacher PD programs—notably, linking participation to incentives such as promotion or salary implications, having a specific subject focus, incorporating lesson enactment in the training, and including initial face-to-face training—are positively associated with student test score gains. Furthermore, qualitative evidence suggests that follow-up visits to reinforce skills learned in training are important to effective training. Further documentation of detailed program characteristics, coupled with rigorous evaluation, will continue to inform effective evaluations.

The impacts of these characteristics are not small: having a specific subject focus and incorporating lesson enactment are associated with 0.24 and 0.10 more standard deviations in learning, respectively, for example. Comparing these effect sizes to those from a sample of 747 education-related randomized controlled trials in the United States puts them both above the 50th percentile in terms of effectiveness ( Kraft 2020 ). Comparing to a set of 130 randomized controlled trials in low- and middle-income countries likewise put them at or above the 50 th percentile of 0.10 standard deviations ( Evans and Yuan 2020 ). In high-income countries, Kennedy (2019) proposes that the impact of teacher PD programs be benchmarked against a much less costly “community of practice” model in which teachers help each other, like Papay et al. (2020) . While we are not aware of a rigorously evaluated, costed model of that class of program in a low- or middle-income country, an alternative would be to compare teacher PD results to a pure monitoring model, such as an increase in inspections. Along these lines, Muralidharan et al. (2017) show—using data from India—that increased frequency of monitoring would be a much more cost-effective way to reduce effective class sizes (through reduced teacher absenteeism) than hiring more teachers. These are useful avenues to pursue for future research as countries consider the cost-effectiveness of alternative investments in teachers.

Third, by comparing the means of at-scale PD programs with top-performing evaluated programs, our findings highlight gaps between what evidence suggests are effective characteristics of teacher PD programs and the contextual realities of most teacher PD programs in their design, content, and delivery. In particular, our findings taken together suggest that at-scale programs often lack key characteristics of top-performing training programs. At-scale programs are much less likely to be linked to career incentives, to provide storybooks or other reading materials, to have a subject content focus, to include time for practicing with other teachers, or to include follow-up visits.

The approach taken by this paper centers on using the ITTSI to collect and compare data on rigorously evaluated and at-scale, government-funded teacher PD programs. This approach has limitations. First, the evidence of what works within rigorously evaluated programs is limited by those programs that have been evaluated. There may be innovative PD programs that are not among the “top performers” simply because they have yet to be evaluated. While this evidence base can push policymakers away from approaches that do not work, it should not deter policymakers from innovating and evaluating those innovations.

A second, related limitation concerns the relatively small sample of evaluated teacher PD programs in low- and middle-income countries, on which our findings about effective PD characteristics are based. Some of the larger coefficients in the regressions are driven by a small number of teacher training programs. These instances have been noted in the text. As more evaluations of PD programs are conducted, the ITTSI can be applied to these and our analyses re-run to shed further light on the specific characteristics associated with PD programs that improve student learning. The ITTSI data were already updated once in this way in 2018, increasing the number of evaluated programs in our sample from 26 to 33.

Third, a conceptual concern with evaluating teacher professional programs is the risk that impacts may be explained by observer effects (also referred to as Hawthorne effects). These effects have been documented in education ( Muralidharan et al. 2017 ) and health in low- and middle-income countries ( Leonard 2008 ; Leonard and Masatu 2010 ). The impact of any education intervention may partly be due to observer effects, since the introduction of an intervention suggests that someone is paying attention to the teacher's efforts. Both randomized controlled trials and more traditional monitoring and evaluation may enhance these effects, as teachers may further respond favorably to the observation associated with measurement. Randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies with a credible comparison group overcome part of this concern, as the observer effect associated with measurement will exist in both the treatment and comparison groups, and measured program impacts should be net of those effects.

That leaves the impact of the intervention itself. In this review, all of the studies we include evaluate interventions and, as such, all may be subject to an observer effect. Our analysis implicitly assumes the magnitude of this observer effect to be constant across different types of PD. By comparing PD characteristics across programs, we observe whether those characteristics are associated with a larger total effect on learning. Part of that total effect may stem from increased teacher skills, and part may be explained by certain PD characteristics inducing greater observer effects (since any observer effects that are uncorrelated with PD characteristics would be absorbed in our regression constant terms). In the short run, the impact for students is observationally equivalent. Even with longer run studies (of which there are very few in education and development), observer effects may fade, but teacher skills may also depreciate ( Cilliers et al. 2020 ). As a result, we consider the total association of PD characteristics with student learning, including through increased teacher human capital and observer effects.

Fourth, there are challenges in comparing evaluated PD programs with at-scale PD programs. As the data demonstrate, at-scale PD programs tend to be larger programs designed by governments, often at the national level, and aimed at providing broad training to teachers. In light of these differences, we highlight the fact that top-performing programs—regardless of their core objectives—share certain common sets of characteristics that most at-scale programs do not share. Awareness of these characteristics may be useful in the conceptualization and implementation of future teacher PD programs in low- and middle-income countries, including large-scale programs funded by governments.

One key reason that at-scale programs may differ from successful, evaluated programs is that the latter group of evaluations may not be designed in a way that is conducive to scaling. Evaluated programs tend to be much smaller than at-scale programs: in our data, evaluated programs reached an average of 96 schools versus at-scale programs that reached more than 6,000 schools on average ( supplementary online appendix table A7.1 ). These smaller programs often have higher per-pupil costs ( Evans and Popova 2016b ), so scaling them nationwide requires cutting elements. Smaller programs are easier to staff and easier to monitor. Evaluated programs were three times as likely to be designed by researchers and less than one-third as likely to be implemented by government ( supplementary online appendix table A7.1 ). One solution, obviously, is more large-scale evaluations, like Loyalka et al. (2019) . However, even smaller evaluations can do more to mimic scalable policies. Gove et al. (2017) , reflecting on programs evaluated both at pilot and at scale in Kenya and Liberia, suggest the value of testing as many elements as possible in the pilot, using government systems in the pilot as much as possible, and to make sure that pilot costs are within what a government budget can handle. Duflo et al. (2020) combine these two approaches in a recent nationwide, five-arm randomized controlled trial in Ghana, to test the scalability of four different models to reach remedial learners, which had previously been tested in small pilot randomized controlled trials elsewhere. When implemented within existing government systems, they find all four interventions to be effective, pointing to the program's inception within the government as key, as opposed to an initial non-government organization initiative subsequently and imperfectly implemented by the government.

Improving in-service teacher professional development may be a clear win for governments. They are already spending resources on these programs, and there is broad support for these programs among teachers and teachers’ unions. Interventions such as the above provide learning opportunities for country governments and stakeholders seeking to design effective teacher PD programs. While no single characteristic of top-performing PD programs may transform an ineffective PD program into an effective one, this paper highlights trends in top-performing programs, such as including incentives, a specific subject focus, and lesson enactment. These are characteristics that, if included and implemented successfully, have the potential to improve the quality of teacher PD programs, and ultimately, the quality of instruction and student learning.

The authors are grateful for comments from Denise Bello, Luis Benveniste, Barbara Bruns, Martin Carnoy, Joost de Laat, Margaret Dubeck, Deon Filmer, Susanna Loeb, Prashant Loyalka, Ezequiel Molina, Andrew Ragatz, and Halsey Rogers. They are also grateful to Fei Yuan for excellent research assistance, to Veronica Michel Gutierrez, Olga A. Rines, Lea Jeanne Marie Lungmann, Fata No, and Elissar Tatum Harati for their support with data collection, and to numerous teacher training implementers for providing information on programs. This paper subsumes an earlier paper, “Training Teachers on the Job: What Works and How to Measure It” (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Number 7834).

This work was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank's Systems Approach for Better Education (SABER) Trust Fund, which was supported by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) and Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund at the World Bank.

Both samples focus on teacher training programs at the primary and secondary school level. Pre-primary schools are excluded.

The databases we searched were the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC); Academic Search Complete; Business Source Complete; Econlit with Full Text; Education Full Text (H. W. Wilson); Education Index Retrospective: 1929–1983; Education Source; Educational Administration Abstracts; Social Science Full Text (H. W. Wilson); Teacher Reference Center; and EconLit. We looked for articles containing the terms (“teacher training” OR “teacher education” OR “professional development”) AND (``learning'' OR ``scores'' OR ``attainment'') AND (“impact evaluation” OR ``effects'') AND (“developing country 1” OR “developing country 2” OR “developing country N”), where “developing country” was replaced by country names.

In six cases, program implementers failed to schedule an interview after three attempts at contact, and in the case of one older program, the implementer had passed away. Interviews were held over the phone or in-person, and lasted between 45 and 90 minutes for each program.

A limitation is that some of the impact estimates from school-randomized control trials in our evaluated sample are over-estimates because the authors fail to account for the clustering of children within teachers or schools ( Hedges 2009 ).

For categorical variables, this is straightforward. For example, we convert the original categorical variable for the location of the initial teacher PD—which includes response options of schools, a central location, a training center, or online—into four dummy variables. In order to convert the continuous variables to a comparable scale, we create a dummy for each continuous variable which, for a given program, takes a value of 1 if the continuous variable is greater than the median value of this variable across all programs, and a value of 0 if it is less than or equal to the value of this variable across all programs. We apply this method to the conversion of all continuous variables except three—proportion of teachers that dropped out of the program, number of follow-up visits, and weeks of distance learning—which we convert directly to dummy variables that take a value of 1 if the original variable was greater than 0, and a value of 0 otherwise.

We estimate bootstrapped standard errors by resampling our data with replacement 1,000 times. We run Fisher randomization tests by treating each indicator PD characteristic as a treatment and calculating a randomization distribution of mean differences (the test statistic) across treatment assignments. Specifically, for 1,000 permutations, we randomly reassign values of 0 or 1 to the independent variables in our regressions, while maintaining the overall proportion of 0s and 1s observed in the empirical sample for a given variable. We then calculate Fisher exact p -values by finding the proportion of the randomization distribution that is larger than our observed test statistic ( Fisher 1925 , 1935 ; Imbens and Rubin 2015 ).

These regions include: Africa, Eastern and Central Europe, Latin American and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and East and South Asia.

This includes programs ongoing in 2016 and programs that were implemented anytime in the range of 2012 to 2016. Hence, the programs could have been designed prior to 2012. We still include them if they were implemented any time between 2012 and 2016. We were not successful in obtaining roster information in all countries. For instance, in Morocco and the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Ministries of Education were in the process of making changes to the structure and delivery of teacher training programs and indicated that it was not a good time for data collection. In Tanzania there was a change in leadership among government counterparts during efforts to complete the roster and data collection process, and we were not able to properly sample and apply the ITTSI in all teacher-training programs in the country. In India, we had initially identified two states, Bihar and Karnataka, to work with at the subnational level, but ultimately only collected data in one state, Bihar, since the principal government counterpart in Karnataka was not available to complete the roster.

In some cases, we test a negative (e.g., no implications for status in table 2 or no subject focus in table 3 ) because we are testing an exhaustive series of indicators derived from the same question (e.g., subject focus is math, subject focus is literacy, or no subject focus).

Because it is difficult to imagine an effective teacher professional development program that teachers actively dislike (they have to learn for it to work, after all), their preferences are relevant.

When we include programs with no follow-up visits, the median number of follow-up visits to teachers in top programs becomes 3.5 as compared to 0 for at-scale programs.

Albornoz   F. , Anauati   M. V. , Furman   M. , Luzuriaga   M. , Podestá   M. E. , Taylor   I. . 2018. “ Training to Teach Science: Experimental Evidence from Argentina .” Policy Research Working Paper 8594 , World Bank, Washington, DC .

Angrist   J. D. , Lavy   V. . 2001 . “ Does Teacher Training Affect Pupil Learning? Evidence from Matched Comparisons in Jerusalem Public Schools .” Journal of Labor Economics   19 ( 2 ): 343 – 69 .

Google Scholar

Araujo   M. C. , Carneiro   P. , Cruz-Aguayo   Y. , Schady   N. . 2016 . “ Teacher Quality and Learning Outcomes in Kindergarten .” Quarterly Journal of Economics   131 ( 3 ): 1415 – 53 .

Baker   S. , Smith   S. . 1999 . “ Starting off on the Right Foot: The Influence of Four Principles of Professional Development in Improving Literacy Instruction in Two Kindergarten Programs .” Learning Disabilities Research & Practice   14 ( 4 ): 239 – 53 .

Banerjee   A. , Cole   S. , Duflo   E. , Linden   L. L. . 2007 . “ Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India .” Quarterly Journal of Economics   122 ( 3 ): 1235 – 64 .

Berlinski   S. , Busso   M. . 2017 . “ Challenges in Educational Reform: An Experiment on Active Learning in Mathematics .” Economics Letters   156 : 172 – 5 .

Bold   T. , Filmer   D. , Martin   G. , Molina   E. , Rockmore   C. , Stacy   B. , Svensson   J. , Wane   W. . 2017 . “ What Do Teachers Know and Do? Does It Matter? Evidence from Primary Schools in Africa .” Policy Research Working Paper 7956 , World Bank, Washington, DC .

Borenstein   M. , Hedges   L. V. , Higgins   J. P. T. , Rothstein   H. R. . 2009 . Introduction to Meta-Analysis .   Chichester, United Kingdom : John Wiley & Sons .

Google Preview

Borko   H.   2004 . “ Professional Development and Teacher Learning: Mapping the Terrain .” Educational Researcher   33 ( 8 ): 3 – 15 .

Bourgeois   E. , Nizet   J. . 1997 . Aprendizaje y formación de personas adultas .   Paris, France : Presses Universite de France .

Cardemil   C.   2001 . “ Procesos y condiciones en el aprendizaje de adultos .” Jornada Nacional de Supervisores. Supervisión para aprendizajes de calidad y oportunidades para todos. Educación Rural .   Santiago : Ministerio de Educación . https://repositorio.uahurtado.cl/handle/11242/8517 .

Chetty   R. , Friedman   J. N. , Rockoff   J. E. . 2014 . “ Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood .” American Economic Review   104 ( 9 ): 2633 – 79 .

Cilliers   J. , Fleisch   B. , Kotze   J. , Mohohlwane   M. , Taylor.   S.   2020 . “ The Challenge of Sustaining Effective Teaching: Spillovers, Fade-out, and the Cost-effectiveness of Teacher Development Programs .” Unpublished Working Paper . https://www.dropbox.com/s/6xmv7283oxoysj2/The%20Challenge%20of%20Sustaining%20Effective%20Teaching%20with%20appendix.pdf?dl=0 .

Darling-Hammond   L. , Wei   R. C. , Andree   A. , Richardson   N. , Orphanos   S. . 2009 . Professional Learning in the Learning Profession .   Washington, DC : National Staff Development Council . https://edpolicy.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/professional-learning-learning-profession-status-report-teacher-development-us-and-abroad.pdf .

Desimone   L. M.   2009 . “ Improving Impact Studies of Teachers’ Professional Development: Toward Better Conceptualizations and Measures .” Educational Researcher   38 ( 3 ): 181 – 99 .

Duflo   A. , Kiessel   J. , Lucas   A. . 2020 . “ External Validity: Four Models of Improving Student Achievement .” Working Paper No. w27298 , National Bureau of Economic Research , Cambridge, MA .

Evans   D. K. , Popova   A. . 2016a . “ What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews .” World Bank Research Observer   31 ( 3 ): 242 – 70 .

Evans   D. K. , Popova   A. . 2016b . “ Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Development: Accounting for Local Costs and Noisy Impacts .” World Development   77 : 262 – 76 .

Evans   D. K. , Yuan   F. . 2020 . “ How Big are Effect Sizes in International Education Studies? ” Working Paper 545 , Center for Global Development , Washington, DC .

Fisher   R. A.   1925 . Statistical Methods for Research Workers , first edition. Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd Ltd .

Fisher   R. A.   1935 . The Design of Experiments ,  sixth edition. Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd, Ltd , 1951 .

Fryer, Jr   R. G.   2017 . “ The Production of Human Capital in Developed Countries: Evidence from 196 Randomized Field Experiments .” Handbook of Economic Field Experiments   2 : 95 – 322 .

Gersten   R. , Taylor   M. J. , Keys   T. D. , Rolfhus   E. , Newman-Gonchar   R. . 2014 . Summary of Research on the Effectiveness of Math Professional Development Approaches .   Washington, DC : Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, U.S. Department of Education; and Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast at Florida State University . http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED544681.pdf .

Gove   A. , Poole   M. K. , Piper   B. . 2017 . “ Designing for Scale: Reflections on Rolling Out Reading Improvement in Kenya and Liberia .” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development   2017 ( 155 ): 77 – 95 .

Hedges   L.V . 2009 . “ Effect Sizes in Nested Designs .” In The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-analysis , edited by Cooper   H. , Hedges   L. V. , Valentine,   J. C.   337 – 56 . New York, NY : Russell Sage Foundation .

Huberman   M.   1989 . “ The Professional Life Cycle of Teachers .” Teachers College Record   91 ( 1 ): 31 – 57 .

Imbens   G. W. , Rubin   D. B. . 2015 . Causal Inference in Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences .   Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press .

Kennedy   M. M . 2019 . “ How We Learn About Teacher Learning .” Review of Research in Education   43 ( 1 ): 138 – 62 .

Kerwin   J. T. , Thornton   R. L. . 2021 . “ Making the Grade: The Sensitivity of Education Program Effectiveness to Input Choices and Outcome Measures .” Review of Economics and Statistics   103 ( 2 ): 251 – 64 .

Knowles   M. S. , Holton   E. F. , Swanson   R. A. . 2005 . The Adult Learner , sixth edition.   Burlington, MA : Elsevier .

Kraft   M. A.   2020 . “ Interpreting Effect Sizes of Education Interventions .” Educational Researcher   49 ( 4 ): 241 – 53 .

Kraft   M. A. , Papay   J. P. . 2014 . “ Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience .” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis   36 ( 4 ): 476 – 500 .

La Paro   K. M. , Pianta   R. C. . 2003 . CLASS: Classroom Assessment Scoring System . Charlottesville, VA : University of Virginia .

Leonard   K. L.   2008 . “ Is Patient Satisfaction Sensitive to Changes in the Quality of Care? An Exploitation of the Hawthorne Effect .” Journal of Health Economics   27 ( 2 ): 444 – 59 .

Leonard   K. L. , Masatu   M. C. . 2010 . “ Using the Hawthorne Effect to Examine the Gap Between a Doctor's Best Possible Practice and Actual Performance .” Journal of Development Economics   93 ( 2 ): 226 – 34 .

Loyalka   P. , Popova   A. , Li   G. , Shi   Z. . 2019 . “ Does Teacher Training Actually Work? Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Evaluation of a National Teacher Training Program .” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics   11 ( 3 ): 128 – 54 .

McEwan   P.   2015 . “ Improving Learning in Primary Schools of Developing Countries: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Experiments .” Review of Educational Research   85 ( 3 ): 353 – 94 .

Molina   E. , Fatima   S. F. , Ho   A. , Hurtado   C. M. , Wilichowski   T. , Pushparatnam   A. . 2018 . “ Measuring Teaching Practices at Scale: Results from the Development and Validation of the Teach Classroom Observation Tool .” Policy Research Working Paper 8653 , World Bank , Washington, DC .

Muralidharan   K. , Das   J. , Holla   A. , Mohpal   A. . 2017 . “ The Fiscal Cost of Weak Governance: Evidence from Teacher Absence in India .” Journal of Public Economics   145 : 116 – 35 .

Papay   J. P. , Taylor   E. S. , Tyler   J. H. , Laski   M. E. . 2020 . “ Learning Job Skills from Colleagues at Work: Evidence from a Field Experiment Using Teacher Performance Data .” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy   12 ( 1 ): 359 – 88 .

Piper   B. , Korda   M. . 2011 . EGRA Plus: Liberia (Program evaluation report) . Durham, NC : RTI International .

Rogers   H. , Demas   A. . 2013 . The What, Why, and How of the Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) . Washington, DC: World Bank . http://wbgfiles.worldbank.org/documents/hdn/ed/saber/supporting_doc/Background/SABER_Overview_Paper.pdf .

Shulman   L. S.   1986 . “ Those Who Understand: Knowledge Growth in Teaching .” Educational Researcher   15 ( 2 ): 4 – 14 .

TNTP . 2015 . The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth about Our Quest for Teacher Development . The New Teacher Project. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED558206.pdf .

Villegas-Reimers   E.   2003 . Teacher Professional Development: An International Review of the Literature . Paris : UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning . http://www.iiep.unesco.org/en/publication/teacher-professional-development-international-review-literature .

Walter   C. , Briggs   J. . 2012 . What Professional Development Makes the Most Difference to Teachers .   Oxford : University of Oxford Department of Education . https://www.oupjapan.co.jp/sites/default/files/contents/events/od2018/media/od18_Walter_reference.pdf .

Wenglinsky   H.   2000 . “ How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back into Discussions of Teacher Quality .” Policy Information Center Report , Educational Testing Service (ETS) .

Wiley   D. , Yoon   B. . 1995 . “ Teacher Reports of Opportunity to Learn: Analyses of the 1993 California Learning Assessment System .” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis   17 ( 3 ): 355 – 70 .

Wood   F. H. , McQuarrie   F. Jr.   1999 . “On the Job Learning. New Approaches will Shape Professional Learning in the 21st Century .” Journal of Staff Development   20 : 10 – 13 .

Yoon   K. S. , Duncan   T. , Lee   S. W. Y. , Scarloss   B. , Shapley   K. . 2007 . Reviewing the Evidence on how Teacher Professional Development Affects Student Achievement (Issues & Answers Report No. 033) . Washington, DC : Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, U.S. Department of Education; and Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast at Florida State University . http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED498548.pdf .

Supplementary data

Email alerts, citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1564-6971
• Print ISSN 0257-3032
• Copyright © 2024 World Bank
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Teacher Professional Development, Explained

• Share article

It’s lauded by some as one of the best ways to improve teaching and learning, scorned by others as a complete waste of time. It’s something that teachers might have access to weekly, or barely get once or twice a year.

Professional development will be part of almost every teacher’s career. They will take district-provided training, participate in collaborative learning groups, or seek out seminars and conferences.

When professional development is done well, it provides an opportunity for teachers to grow their knowledge and sharpen their skills, which can lead to better student outcomes. It’s a way for teachers to collaborate with their colleagues, and one avenue through which administrators can support their teachers.

That’s the goal. But it’s not always the reality.

The K-12 professional development landscape is diffuse and highly local, with offerings varying from district to district and even school to school. Teachers have long said that the PD they receive often isn’t relevant to the subject or grade level they teach, that it doesn’t provide tips for practical application in the classroom, or that its goals are vague.

And research on the topic is mixed, with studies demonstrating that some approaches work well—and others don’t have any effect.

Read on for an overview of the field: what options exist, what research shows can improve student outcomes, and how teachers say professional development could be improved.

What is teacher professional development?

Professional development, or professional learning, can refer to any kind of ongoing learning opportunity for teachers and other education personnel.

Some professional development is required—for example, a state law could mandate that all elementary school teachers undergo training in early literacy instruction , or a school could host a mandatory workshop on a day reserved for in-service teacher professional development.

Most states require that teachers complete a certain number of hours of professional development to renew their teaching licenses or to receive salary boosts. Usually, teachers can meet these requirements by taking continuing education classes through colleges and universities, or by taking professional development courses from state-approved providers.

A host of organizations provide these PD sessions, including teachers’ unions, subject-specific professional associations, education companies and publishers, museums, government agencies , and nonprofits.

Exactly how much teachers pay for PD varies, too. Districts and unions will offer some options to teachers for free, or deeply discounted. But often teachers pay out of pocket, especially for opportunities hosted by outside organizations.

What are some examples of teacher professional development?

The stereotypical PD session is the “one-and-done.”

A group of teachers gather in a classroom or an auditorium to listen while a consultant delivers a scripted presentation on a general topic. It’s then up to teachers to figure out how to apply that information to their specific classroom contexts—if they choose to do so at all.

Teachers, policymakers, and education researchers have criticized these kinds of one-off workshops for their lack of continuity and coherence, but they’re still very much a part of the PD landscape (see the next section).

Still, the suite of options is much broader than just workshops. Here are some of the other types of professional learning that teachers could have access to:

• Professional learning communities: Also known as PLCs, these small groups of teachers—often organized around subject areas or grade levels—meet regularly to share expertise and plan for instruction.
• Curriculum-based PD: Teachers learn how to use their school or district’s curriculum and other instructional materials, often discussing how to adapt it for their students’ needs.
• Coaching and peer observation: An instructional coach, or teachers themselves, help other teachers plan lessons, observe each other’s classrooms, and offer feedback.
• Conferences, seminars, and institutes: Teachers attend meetings outside of school, where they can learn from experts and their colleagues. These often occur during summer or other school breaks.
• National Board Certification: Teachers who complete a series of portfolio projects and pass an assessment receive this advanced certification, which comes with salary increases in some states.
• University courses: Teachers can take these to deepen their subject matter knowledge or their understanding of instructional practice. They can also count toward graduate degrees, which help teachers move up the pay ladder.

What kind of teacher professional development is most common?

Teachers say that the type of PD they participate in most often is collaborative learning, according to a 2023 study from the RAND Corporation that surveyed a nationally representative sample of 8,000 teachers.

This includes work time with colleagues or more structured meetings, like professional learning communities. Thirty-nine percent of teachers said they did this at least weekly.

Still, workshops and short trainings are still part of many schools’ approaches.

The federal government provides funding that districts and states can use for professional development through Title II-A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Data from the 2020-21 school year show that 90 percent of districts that used some of this money for PD spent the funds on trainings that lasted three days or fewer, or on conferences.

Districts spent on other types of PD too. Eighty percent of districts said they funded longer-term professional development lasting four or more days, and 55 percent supported collaborative or job-embedded professional development.

Research from the past decade shows that much of the professional development that teachers undergo doesn’t meet the federal standard for “high-quality.”

The Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal K-12 law that replaced the No Child Left Behind Act, defines high-quality professional learning as meeting six criteria: it’s sustained (meaning not a one-off workshop), intensive, collaborative, job-embedded, data-driven, and classroom-focused.

But most offerings don’t meet all of these benchmarks. A 2016 study from the Frontline Research & Learning Institute examined 3.2 million PD enrollments between 2011 and 2016, and found that 80 percent of them didn’t meet the federal standard in full.

Most professional development is locally provided, from school districts, regional offices of education, or teachers’ unions. Quality control is often lacking : Some states have hundreds of approved providers, and only audit a small sample each year.

What makes for effective teacher professional development?

Hard data on which professional-development models lead to better teaching are difficult to come by.

In part, this is because professional development relies on a two-part transfer of knowledge: Teachers need to learn new knowledge and skills such that they change their behavior, and those changes must subsequently result in improved student mastery of subject matter. Unsurprisingly, the complex nature of those transactions renders the field of professional development a challenging one to study.

Still, research reviews conducted over the last five years or so have provided some insights.

In a brief published in 2022 , researchers at Harvard Graduate School of Education and Brown University reviewed dozens of studies on professional development to identify some commonalities in successful programs.

They found that professional development that focused on instructional practice —identifying key teaching strategies and providing support for carrying out those changes in the classroom—was generally more effective for improving student performance than professional learning that focused solely on building teachers’ content knowledge in their subjects.

This instruction-focused PD is most effective when it’s tied to materials that teachers are going to use in the classroom, an approach also known as curriculum-based professional development. The paper cites two metanalyses—one of coaching programs , and one of science, technology, engineering and math instructional improvement programs —that both found PD had larger effects on student outcomes when it helped teachers understand how to best use their classroom materials. Other research reviews have identified the importance of providing teachers with models and examples.

Adding follow-up sessions was helpful too. They provide opportunities for teachers to share their experiences implementing new information and get feedback from peers.

Coaching is also powerful. A 2018 meta-analysis of 60 studies on instructional coaching found that it can improve teachers’ practice, so much so that in some cases a novice teacher performed at the same level as one who had been in the classroom for 5 years. It improves student performance, too, as measured by standardized test scores.

Still, the results came with a caveat. Coaching programs became less successful as they got larger, involving more teachers. Recruiting, developing, and supporting a large staff of coaches can be costly and challenging to districts to implement, the researchers said .

Other types of professional development also have stipulations.

Adding collaboration time for teachers to work together can be very effective—but only if that time is well-used. One 2022 study , for example, found that teachers reported participating more—and perceived collaborative time to be more useful to their practice—when it was focused on a specific goal, rather than swapping general strategies to improve instruction.

What do teachers say would make professional development better?

Because professional development varies so widely in type and in quality, teachers’ opinion of it varies too. But in general, teachers’ critiques of PD line up with research findings about what is, and isn’t, best practice.

Teachers have said they want professional development to be more practical and directly connected to the work that they’re doing in the classroom. A common complaint is that PD is not tailored to teachers’ needs —for example, mandatory seminars that often have no relevance to their particular subject area or cover skills that they mastered years ago.

Teachers want time to apply what they’ve learned with students and then follow up with PD providers and their colleagues to evaluate: Did this go well? Why or why not? And is it helping students?

Finally, teachers have also identified a need for more support in reaching certain student groups. In the 2023 RAND survey , most teachers said their professional learning offered no access to expertise, or only slight access to expertise, in supporting students with disabilities or English learners.

Sign Up for The Savvy Principal

Edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

Advertisement

Technology professional development for teacher educators: A literature review and proposal for further research

• Review Paper
• Published: 06 July 2021
• Volume 1 , article number  200 , ( 2021 )

Cite this article

• Foster Gondwe   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5716-3538 1  

1148 Accesses

2 Citations

Explore all metrics

Teacher educators still face challenges to model effective technology integration into their work partly because they lack necessary technology competencies. With teacher educator technology competencies and technology professional development gaining prominence internationally recently, there is a need to continue making sense of the existing literature on the subject. This article is a literature review and includes proposals for new areas of research that can extend our knowledge of technology professional development (TPD) for teacher educators. Thirty papers published between 2000 and 2019 were included in the review. The findings include knowns and unknowns on the evaluation components of TPD teacher educators. The article has suggested further research on understanding teacher educators’ technology professional development from student teachers’ perspectives; the link between teacher educators’ technology competencies and their professional roles; and balancing between formal and informal TPD. The unique contribution of the paper is a proposed framework for conceptualizing teacher educators’ technology professionalism.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA) Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Technology Teacher Educators

Where is Technology in the ‘Golden Thread’ of Teacher Professional Development?

Data availability.

Although data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were analysed in this study, the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Archambault L, Wetzel K, Foulger TS, Kim Williams M (2010) Professional development 2.0: transforming teacher education pedagogy with 21st century tools. J Digit Learn Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2010.10784651

Article   Google Scholar  

Borg S, Clifford I, Htut KP (2018) Having an EfECT: professional development for teacher educators in Myanmar. Teach Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.02.010

Capobianco B, Lehman J (2006) Integrating technology to foster inquiry in an elementary science methods course: an action research study of one teacher educator’s initiatives in a PT3 Project. J Comput Math Sci Teach 25(2):123–146

Google Scholar  

Drent M, Meelissen M (2008) Which factors obstruct or stimulate teacher educators to use ICT innovatively? Comput Educ. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COMPEDU.2007.05.001

Duran M, Brunvand S, Fossum P (2009) Preparing Science teachers to teach with technology: Exploring a K-16 Networked Learning Community Approach. T he Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 8(4): 21–42. Available via http://www.tojet.net/articles/v8i4/843.pdf

Elamin C, Fordham N, Hammond DR, O’bannon B, Vannetta R, Gruber K (2008) Infusing technology into the elementary classroom: a school/university partnership model. Comput Schools 19(1–2):149–162. https://doi.org/10.1300/J025v19n01_11

European Commission (2013) Supporting teacher educators. Educ Train. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-49527-7_2

Evans L (2008) Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals. Br J Educ Stud. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2007.00392.x

Evans L (2014) Leadership for professional development and learning: enhancing our understanding of how teachers develop. Camb J Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2013.860083

Evans L (2015) Professionalism and professional development: what these research fields look like today—and what tomorrow should bring. Hillary Place Papers. Available via https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e356/d2d12d67039503d358ba2bb7106f52f5bca1.pdf

Evans L (2019) Implicit and informal professional development: what it ‘looks like’, how it occurs, and why we need to research it. Prof Dev Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2018.1441172

Fereday J, Muir-Cochrane E (2006) Demonstrating rigor using thematic analysis: a hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding and theme development. Int J Qual Methods. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690600500107

Fletcher T, Bullock SM (2015) Reframing pedagogy while teaching about teaching online: a collaborative self-study. Prof Dev Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2014.938357

Foulger TS, Buss RR, Wetzel K, Lindsey LA (2015) Instructors’ growth in TPACK: teaching technology-infused methods courses to preservice teachers. J Digit Learn Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2015.1055010

Foulger TS, Graziano KJ, Schmidt-crawford DA, Slykhuis DA (2017) Teacher educator technology competencies. J Technol Teach Educ 25:413–448

Fowler Z, Stanley G, Murray J, Jones M, McNamara O (2013) Research capacity-building with new technologies within new communities of practice: reflections on the first year of the Teacher Education Research Network. Prof Dev Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2012.744769

Franklin CA, Sessoms DB (2005) A Situative perspective on a collaborative model for integrating technology into teaching. J Educ Comput Res. https://doi.org/10.2190/BQCM-R7AW-PH1B-KRRE

Grant MM (2004) Learning to teach with the web: factors influencing teacher education faculty. Internet High Educ. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2004.09.005

Heck D, Sweeney TA (2013) Using most significant change stories to document the impact of the teaching teachers for the future project: an australian teacher education story. Austral Educ Comput 27(3):36–47

Hong CE, Van Riper I (2016) Enhancing teacher learning from guided video analysis of literacy instruction: an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. J Inquiry Action Educ 7(2):94–110

Jaipal-Jamani K, Figg C, Gallagher T, Scott R, Ciampa K (2015) Collaborative professional development in higher education: developing knowledge of technology enhanced teaching. J Effect Teach 17(2):90–111

Jaramillo-Baquerizo C, Valcke M, Vanderlinde R (2019) Professional development initiatives for university teachers: variables that influence the transfer of learning to the workplace. Innov Educ Teach Int. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2018.1479283

Johnson H, Ehrlich S, Watts-Taffe S, Williams C (2014) Who am I here? Disrupted identities and gentle shifts when teaching in cyberspace. J Instruct Res 3:43–54

Kastberg S, Lynch-Davis K, D’Ambrosio B (2014) Examining mathematics teacher educators’ emerging practices in online environments. Contemp Issues Technol Teach Educ 14(4):384–400

Kennedy A (2014) Understanding CPD: the need for theory to impact on policy and practice. Prof Dev Educ 40(5):688–697

Kennedy M (2016) How does professional development improve teaching? Rev Educ Res. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315626800

King F (2014) Evaluating the impact of teacher professional development: an evidence-based framework. Prof Dev Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2013.823099

Kosnik C, Menna L, Dharamshi P, Miyata C, Cleovoulou Y, Beck C (2015) Four spheres of knowledge required: an international study of the professional development of literacy/English teacher educators. J Educ Teach. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2014.992634

Lavonen J, Lattu M, Juuti K, Meisalo V (2006) Strategy based development of teacher educators’ ICT competence through a cooperative staff development project. Eur J Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619760600617433

Lawless KA, Pellegrino JW (2007) Professional development in integrating technology into teaching and learning: knowns, unknowns, and ways to pursue better questions and answers. Rev Educ Res. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654307309921

Lidolf S, Pasco D (2020) Educational technology professional development in higher education: a systematic literature review of empirical research. Front Educ. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.00035

Lunenberg M, Dengerink J, Korthagen F (2014) The Professional teacher educator: roles, behaviour, and professional development of teacher educators. Springer, New York

Book   Google Scholar  

Murphy KL, Richards J, Lewis C (2005) Strengthening Educational Technology in K-8 Urban schools and in preservice teacher education: a practitioner-faculty collaborative process. J Technol Teach Educ 13(1):125–139

Murray J (2014) Teacher educators’ constructions of professionalism: a case study. Asia Pac J Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2013.870971

Parrish AH, Sadera WA (2019) A review of faculty development models that build teacher educators’ technology competencies. J Technol Teach Educ 27(4):437–464

Peeraer J, Van Petegem P (2012) The limits of programmed professional development on integration of information and communication technology in education. Austral J Educ Technol. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.809

Ping C, Schellings G, Beijaard D (2018) Teacher educators’ professional learning: a literature review. Teach Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.06.003

Reading C, Doyle H (2013) Teacher educators as learners: enabling learning while developing innovative practice in ict-rich education. Aust Educ Comput 27(3):109–116

Reese J (2016) Virtual mentoring of preservice teachers: mentors’ perceptions. J Music Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1177/1057083715577793

Rienties B, Brouwer N, Bohle Carbonell K, Townsend D, Rozendal AP, van der Loo J, Dekker P, Lygo-Baker S (2013a) Online training of TPACK skills of higher education scholars: a cross-institutional impact study. Eur J Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2013.801073

Rienties B, Brouwer N, Lygo-Baker S (2013b) The effects of online professional development on higher education teachers’ beliefs and intentions towards learning facilitation and technology. Teach Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2012.09.002

Rosaen CL, Hobson S, Khan G (2003) Making connections: collaborative approaches to preparing today’s and tomorrow’s teachers to use technology. J Technol Teach Educ 12(2):281–306

Ross V, Chan E (2016) Personal practical knowledge of teacher educators. In: Loughran J, Hamilton M L (eds) International handbook of teacher education, vol 2. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0369-1_1

Sahlberg P, Hasak J, Rodriguez V (2017) Hard questions on global educational change: policies, practices, and the future of education . Teachers College Press.

Schols M (2015) Continuing technology professional development: a technology learning preferences instrument to support teacher educators ’ workplace learning [University of Roehampton]. Available via file:///C:/Users/BP0002115378-0/OneDrive/Research Programm/Articles/Maurice_Schols_Thesis.pdf

Schrum L, Skeele R, Grant M (2002) One college of education’s effort to infuse technology: a systemic approach to revisioning teaching and learning. J Res Technol Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2002.10782385

Soto M, Gupta D, Dick L, Appelgate M (2019) Bridging distances: professional development for higher education faculty through technology-facilitated lesson study. J Univ Teach Learn Pract

Teclehaimanot B, Lamb A (2005) Technology-rich faculty development for teacher educators: the evolution of a program. Contemp Issues Technol Teach Educ 5(3):330–344

Triggs P, John P (2004) From transaction to transformation: information and communication technology, professional development and the formation of communities of practice. J Comput Assist Learn. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2004.00101.x

Uerz D, Volman M, Kral M (2018) Teacher educators’ competencies in fostering student teachers’ proficiency in teaching and learning with technology: an overview of relevant research literature. Teach Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.11.005

Vanassche E, Kelchtermans G (2014) Teacher educators’ professionalism in practice: positioning theory and personal interpretative framework. Teach Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.08.006

Vanassche E, Kidd W, Murray J (2019) Articulating, reclaiming and celebrating the professionalism of teacher educators in England. Eur J Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2019.1628211

Vasinda S, Ryter DA, Hathcock S, Wang Q (2017) Access is not enough: a collaborative autoethnographic study of affordances and challenges of teacher educators’ iPad integration in elementary education methods courses. Contemp Issues Technol Teach Educ CITE J 17(3):411–431

Vaughan M, Beers C, Burnaford G (2015) The impact of iPads on teacher educator practice: a collaborative professional development initiative. Int J Technol Teach Learn 11(1):21–34

Wambugu PW (2018) Massive open online courses (MOOCs) for professional teacher and teacher educator development: a case of TESSA MOOC in Kenya. Universal Journal of Educational Research. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2018.060604

Webster-Wright A (2009) Reframing professional development through understanding authentic professional learning. Rev Educ Res. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654308330970

Wepner SB, Bowes KA, Serotkin R (2005) Lessons learned from implementing technology in an undergraduate elementary education program. J Comput Teach Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402454.2005.10784527

Wright VH, Wilson EK (2007) A partnership of educators to promote technology integration: designing a master technology teacher program. Education 128:80–86

Willis J, Thompson A, Sadera W (1999) Research on technology and teacher education: Current status and future directions. Educ Tech Res Dev. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02299596

Download references

This study did not receive any funding.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Hiroshima University, Japan/University of Malawi, Zomba, Malawi

Foster Gondwe

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Foster Gondwe .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

The author does not have any conflict of interest.

See Table 2 .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Gondwe, F. Technology professional development for teacher educators: A literature review and proposal for further research. SN Soc Sci 1 , 200 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-021-00184-9

Download citation

Received : 13 November 2020

Accepted : 09 June 2021

Published : 06 July 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-021-00184-9

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Teacher educator
• Technology professional development
• Technology professionalism
• Teacher educator technology competence
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• Architecture and Design
• Asian and Pacific Studies
• Business and Economics
• Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Computer Sciences
• Cultural Studies
• Engineering
• General Interest
• Geosciences
• Industrial Chemistry
• Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Library and Information Science, Book Studies
• Life Sciences
• Linguistics and Semiotics
• Literary Studies
• Materials Sciences
• Mathematics
• Social Sciences
• Sports and Recreation
• Theology and Religion
• Publish your article
• The role of authors
• Promoting your article
• Abstracting & indexing
• Publishing Ethics
• Why publish with De Gruyter
• How to publish with De Gruyter
• Our book series
• Our subject areas
• Your digital product at De Gruyter
• Contribute to our reference works
• Product information
• Tools & resources
• Product Information
• Promotional Materials
• Orders and Inquiries
• FAQ for Library Suppliers and Book Sellers
• Repository Policy
• Free access policy
• Open Access agreements
• Database portals
• For Authors
• Customer service
• People + Culture
• Journal Management
• How to join us
• Working at De Gruyter
• Mission & Vision
• De Gruyter Foundation
• De Gruyter Ebound
• Our Responsibility
• Partner publishers

Your purchase has been completed. Your documents are now available to view.

Professional Development through Teacher Research

Stories from language teacher educators.

• Edited by: Darío Luis Banegas , Emily Edwards and Luis S. Villacañas de Castro
• X / Twitter

Please login or register with De Gruyter to order this product.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Copyright year: 2022
• Audience: College/higher education;
• Main content: 240
• Keywords: Teacher training ; Language teaching theory & methods
• Published: March 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781788927727

• NAEYC Login
• Member Profile
• Hello Community
• Accreditation Portal
• Online Learning
• Online Store

Popular Searches:   DAP ;  Coping with COVID-19 ;  E-books ;  Anti-Bias Education ;  Online Store

What is Teacher Research?

You are here

Teacher research is intentional, systematic inquiry by teachers with the goals of gaining insights into teaching and learning, becom­ing more reflective practitioners, effecting changes in the classroom or school, and improving the lives of children.... Teacher research stems from teachers' own questions and seeks practical solutions to issues in their professional lives.... The major components of teacher research are: conceptualization, in which teachers identify a significant problem or interest and determine relevant re­search questions; implementation, in which teachers collect and analyze data; and interpretation, in which teachers examine findings for meaning and take appropriate actions.... Teacher research is systematic in that teachers follow specific procedures and carefully document each step of the process. — " The Nature of Teacher Research " by Barbara Henderson, Daniel R. Meier, and Gail Perry

Teacher Research Resources

The resources below provide early childhood education professionals with tools to learn more about the teacher research process, explore accounts of teachers conducting research in their own classrooms, and connect with others in the field interested in teacher research.

Resources from  Voices of Practitioners

The Nature of Teacher Research Barbara Henderson, Daniel R. Meier, and Gail Perry

The Value of Teacher Research: Nurturing Professional and Personal Growth through Inquiry Andrew J. Stremmel

How To Do Action Research In Your Classroom: Lessons from the Teachers Network Leadership Institute Frances Rust and Christopher Clark

Resources From Other Publications

The resources listed here provide early childhood education professionals with tools to learn more about the teacher research process, explore accounts of teachers conducting research in their own classrooms, and connect with others in the field interested in teacher research.

American Educational Research Association (AERA) AERA encourages scholarly inquiry and promotes the dissemination and application of research results. It includes special interest groups (SIGs) devoted to early childhood and teacher research. Potential members can join AERA and then choose the Action Research or Teachers as Researchers SIGs (See “AR SIG, AERA” and “TR SIG, AERA” below.) AERA holds an annual conference with presentations of early childhood teacher research among many other sessions. www.aera.net

Action Research Special Interest Group, American Educational Research Association (AR SIG, AERA) This group builds community among those engaged in action research and those teaching others to do action research. It offers a blog, links to action research communities, and lists of action research books, journals, and conferences. http://sites.google.com/site/aeraarsig/

Teacher as Researcher Special Interest Group, American Educational Research Association (TAR SIG, AERA) This group consists of AERA members who are teacher educators and preK–12th grade educators; it aims to present teacher research at the AERA conference and elsewhere nationally. Early childhood teacher research is an important part of the group. http://www.aera.net/SIG126/TeacherasResearcherSIG126/tabid/11980/Default.aspx

The Center for Practitioner Research (CFPR) of the National College of Education at National-Louis University CFPR aims to affect education through collaborative scholarship contributing to knowledge, practice, advocacy, and policy in education. The website includes selected action research resources, including links to websites, book lists, conference information, and its online journal  Inquiry in Education . http://nlu.nl.edu/cfpr

Educational Action Research Educational Action Research  is an international journal concerned with exploring the dialogue between research and practice in educational settings. www.tandf.co.uk/journals/reac

Let’s Collaborate, Teacher Research from Access Excellence @ the National Health Museum This site includes useful supports for engaging in teacher research, including examples of K–12 research focused on science education. It offers information on starting a project, examples of teacher research projects, and links to online resources. www.accessexcellence.org/LC/TL/AR/

National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE) NAECTE promotes the professional growth of early childhood teacher educators and advocates for improvements to the field. NAECTE’s  Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education  occasionally publishes teacher research articles, including a special issue focused on teacher research (Volume 31, Issue 3). NAECTE also provides ResearchNets, a forum to foster educational research with teacher research presentations. www.naecte.org

Networks: An On-line Journal for Teacher Research at the University of Wisconsin A venue for sharing reports of action research and discussion on inquiry for teachers at all levels, this journal provides space for discussion of inquiry as a tool to learn about practice and improve its effectiveness. http://journals.library.wisc.edu/index.php/networks

Self-Study Teacher Research: Improving your Practice through Collaborative Inquiry, Student Study Guide from Sage Publications This web-based student study site accompanies a book of the same name; it provides a wealth of information on its own for teachers or teacher educators who conduct studies of their own teaching practice. http://www.sagepub.com/samaras/default.htm

Teacher Action Research from George Mason University This site offers information about the teacher research process, including resources for carrying out teacher research studies. It also contains discussion of current teacher research issues and a comparison of teacher research to other forms of educational research and professional development. http://gse.gmu.edu/research/tr

Teacher Inquiry Communities Network from the National Writing Project (NWP) This network offers information on a mini-grant program supporting an inquiry stance toward teaching and learning. It includes information about the grant program, program reports, and examples of projects (including early elementary projects). http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/programs/tic

Teaching and Teacher Education This journal aims to enhance theory, research, and practice in teaching and teacher education through the publication of primary research and review papers. http://www.journals.elsevier.com/teaching-and-teacher-education

Voices of Practitioners

• Our Mission

Teacher as Researcher: The Ultimate Professional Development

Seeking to learn from what happens in the classroom, teacher researchers are innovators, curriculum drivers, agents of school change, and directors of their own professional development.

Teacher researchers pause each morning as they walk into their classrooms and ask, "What will my students teach me today?" To answer that question, they listen to and watch their students engage in authentic work; collect work samples, photographs, and transcripts to document what their students say and do; and use that information to evolve their practice as they celebrate and support the voices and experiences of the children they teach. In this sense, teacher researchers are innovators, curriculum drivers, agents of school change, and directors of their own professional development.

Support and Growth

As a doctoral student, I participated on the Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum Teacher Researcher Team led by Jane Hansen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia and Reading Hall of Fame Member . For years, in preparation for our teacher research team meetings, I selected a piece of student writing that spoke to me. It would be a piece that made me scratch my head and ask, "What can I learn as a writer and teacher of writing from this young author?" or "What do I need to do next to support her growth?" I would capture these contemplations in a one-pager. That one-pager was exactly that, one page, and its content was reflective of my immediate classroom experience. During our small group meetings, every teacher researcher brought her one-pager, shared her contemplations, and elicited response from her team. We met weekly for one and a half hours. We took our work and time together seriously, because we had an internal charge to grow.

Diversity is essential in creating strong and dynamic teacher research teams. Each year our six- to eight-member group spanned across ages, gender, years of experience, grades, and content areas. Difference expanded the vocabulary of the room. As we heard our fellow researchers use new words and frameworks to discuss their experiences, we began to internalize those new ways of thinking, and thus pushed our own understandings of who and how we teach. Coming to know students as individuals and opening spaces for them to grow in their own directions is difficult work. Teachers' voices and contemplations need support. That is what teacher research teams do; they provide a place to lean and space to explore and expand.

The Best Tools

I have three primary tools that I use as a teacher researcher:

• My first tool is my spiral notebook. Here I jot notes while I conference with students, tape in samples of their work, and record insights and observations. Each evening, I reflect on my notes and use them to plan for tomorrow.
• My second tool is my iPhone. Throughout the day, I take pictures and videos of my students' writing samples, projects, and engineering feats. I often interview them as they share their innovative thinking. These visuals sometimes go in my spiral notebook, sometimes in my Evernote app, and often on my blog to parents. I also use them when I share my students' thinking and creations at our research team meetings and when I present at conferences or write about my practice. The visuals serve as an outward product of our classroom's evolution.
• My third and most important tool is my teacher research team. These colleagues focus me and serve as a sounding board and support network for my contemplations in the classroom.

Tapping Into the Power

The initial power of being a teacher researcher illuminates as you live the classroom life beside your students and realize that they have much to teach you. As you start to listen and record their thinking, you are amazed at the work that is happening in your room. Because of your amazement, you begin to more purposely structure your classroom to meet your students' needs. And because of that new structure, your students' learning is intensified, and their talk and work starts to surpass your own expectations. That power of being a teacher researcher is then clarified and intensified as you sit and discuss your observations and insights with your own teacher research team and receive their response.

Today, I am a classroom teacher and the research coach for our Saints Action Research team, part of our school's Center for the Study of Boys . In that role, I lead a team of seven teacher researchers who teach across grade levels and content areas, researching the work that gets done in their classroom, on the field, and in the studio.

This year I challenge you to join (or perhaps start) a teacher research team. Invite the experiences in your classroom, the questions in your head, and the support of your team to become your most powerful professional development. After all, the most effective curriculum is the one that follows the students, and the most successful professional development is the one that grows from the questions in your classroom.

• Staff Management

How we give teachers time and space to innovate

Using research to improve outcomes is something all schools want to achieve.

Yet it can be hard for teachers to do this because of the busy day-to-day requirements of the job. What’s more, if there is no structure to do this and implement new ideas, it could feel like a futile endeavour.

This is why at Windsor Academy Trust (WAT) we developed our WAT Practitioner Researcher programme, giving staff the opportunity to take part in research-grounded and practice-informed professional learning - by engaging with existing research but also by creating their own, practice-informed evidence that can be shared across the trust.

It’s been running for nearly 10 years now and has had a notable impact in areas such as reading for pleasure, retrieval practice and assessment for learning using digital technology. Here’s how it works.

Research-informed teaching: our trust strategy

Selecting staff

At the start of each academic year, staff can self-nominate to join the programme or line managers may encourage them to take part. Around 30 to 50 staff join each year and we aim for each faculty to be represented within each secondary school, and each phase across our primary schools.

The programmes last an entire academic year and require each teacher to attend six continuing professional learning (CPL) sessions designed to develop skills as a practitioner-researcher. From here the programme unfolds in four distinct stages:

1. Identifying an area of research

We first work with each participant to identify their area of research, based on a challenge they are trying to solve. For example, this could be developing subject-specific vocabulary in history to improve key stage 4 writing or how to maximise student competency with equations in science .

More on staff management:

• Five ways to support “professional wellbeing” in your school
• How our trust is upskilling all teachers on SEND support
• Why we use a TEACHER model for staff appraisals

The key is that research practitioners are aiming to solve a common challenge within the trust to benefit as many staff and students as possible. This means we help the researchers refine their initial ideas so the final scope is broadly applicable across schools.

2. Engaging with literature

The research practitioner then undertakes a literature review to identify the best bets for what could work to tackle this challenge and the methods best suited to the contexts and conditions of different classrooms.

This context-specific research is vital for taking the learning and adapting it across the trust and beyond.

We also use Google Classroom to provide themed research areas for the team, including links to seminal research pieces and texts, so they can view and comment on articles related to their research.

3. Research intervention

Once the project plan, including methodology and ethical considerations, is approved by myself, classroom research intervention takes place, usually over 10 to 12 weeks from February to April.

Within this stage is a session around “critical evaluation”, during which robust conversations between the team are encouraged to share findings to date and probe research methodology: what have you discovered so far? Do you need additional measures? How might further qualitative measurements help you to understand the reasons why particular changes have been identified?

Similar collaborative opportunities take place throughout the process with trust subject leaders and leaders of teaching and learning so researchers have opportunities to share the findings and test and challenge ideas in a supportive environment.

4. Celebration and sharing

Findings are then shared across the trust and with external partners via a Research Celebration Event utilising a bespoke site on Google for each practitioner’s research.

The research reports are compiled into an online journal, including supporting resources and video clips of strategies in action.

Event attendees also join individual practitioners for 15-minute blocks of time to discuss their research and consider how their findings apply to their own classrooms.

Putting it all into action

An example of the impact of this work can be seen with one of our research practitioners, Kerrie Tinson, who looked at whether a focus on reading for pleasure could improve engagement and attainment for Year 8 boys.

During the intervention period, students in her sample cohort made six months’ progress in just six weeks.

As a result, we implemented similar strategies across the trust, including weekly shared read-in English lessons, reciprocal reading strategies such as choral and echo reading, and a subscription to an online library to increase access and choice of texts.

Similarly, successful research interventions around dual coding in the history classroom have led to the development of a revision programme focused on dual coding to prompt retrieval and make links between core knowledge at KS4.

Career impact

In the long term, practitioner-led research plays a significant role in the career development of staff, allowing them to lead change and inspire innovation within their departments and across WAT.

The programme also includes an optional pathway to gain a recognised Chartered College of Teaching (CCT) Education Research and Inquiry Certificate , and some go on to pursue a Master’s qualification in educational leadership through our links with the University of Birmingham.

Even more importantly, of course, the work helps to directly shape continuously improving outcomes for the children and young people in our classrooms.

Kirsty Tinsley is head of research at Windsor Academy Trust

Want to keep reading for free?

Register with Tes and you can read two free articles every month plus you'll have access to our range of award-winning newsletters.

Keep reading for just £1 per month

You've reached your limit of free articles this month. Subscribe for £1 per month for three months and get:

• Unlimited access to all Tes magazine content
• Exclusive subscriber-only stories
• Award-winning email newsletters

topics in this article

Teacher Professional Development Planning at SMAN 6 Palembang

• Amilda Universitas Islam Negeri Raden Fatah Palembang, Sumatera Selatan, Indonesia
• Jumhur Universitas Islam Negeri Raden Fatah Palembang, Sumatera Selatan, Indonesia

This study delves into the topic of professional development planning for teachers at SMAN 6 Palembang. Program sustainability planning, activity planning, time planning, and financial planning are the intended topics of this research. In order to address the research question—how to organize teacher professional development in terms of activity, time, money, and program sustainability—this study used a qualitative method. Interviews, observations, and documentation studies are the methods used to gather data. Methods of purposive sampling are used in the selection of informants. Utilizing triangulation and member verification procedures, the reliability of the data is verified. Data analysis consists of four steps: gathering data, presenting it, checking it, and drawing conclusions. Results and discussion indicated that using teacher development patterns in activity planning is similar to adopting top-down policy rather than focusing on teachers' actual requirements in terms of professional development. Planning for teachers' professional development time has not been owned by schools, the Education Office, or teachers themselves. The majority of our growth time is dictated by external factors and the level of personal motivation from our teachers when it comes to self-improvement. Planning for the Teacher-Experienced Development Fund is not entirely the responsibility of teachers. Despite many school requirements, the needs of instructors are not taken into account when budgeting funds. School budgets have to go somewhere, and no one has thought about the long-term or short-term viability of teacher professional development programs while they were planning their sustainability.

Alfiyanto, A. (2022). Manajemen Rekrutmen Tenaga Pendidik Baru di SMA Nurul Palembang. Adaara: Jurnal Manajemen Pendidikan Islam. https://doi.org/10.30863/ajmpi.v12i1.1741

Alfiyanto, A., & Hidayati, F. (2022). Tenaga Pendidik dan Literasi Digital: Tantangan Pembelajaran Di Era Industri 4.0. Ikhtisar: Jurnal Pengetahuan Islam. https://doi.org/10.55062//ijpi.2022.v2i1.45

Annur, S. (2018). Metodologi Penelitian Pendidikan. Noerfikri.

Firmadani, F. (2022). Strategi Pengembangan Kompetensi Profesional Guru Sekolah Menengah Atas. Jurnal Manajemen Pendidikan: Jurnal Ilmiah Administrasi, Manajemen Dan Kepemimpinan Pendidikan, 3(2), 192–207. https://doi.org/10.21831/jump.v3i2.48045

Gaikhorst, L., Beishuizen, J. J. J., Zijlstra, B. J. H., & Volman, M. L. L. (2017). The sustainability of a teacher professional development programme for beginning urban teachers. Cambridge Journal of Education, 47(1), 135–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2015.1125449

Hartati, S. (2023). PEMBELAJARAN PARTISIPATIF DENGAN METODE GAME PADA RUMPUN PENDIDIKAN AGAMA ISLAM DI MADRASAH ALIYAH NEGERI (MAN) 1 LAMPUNG TENGAH. At-Tajdid : Jurnal Pendidikan Dan Pemikiran Islam.

Hoesny, M. U., & Darmayanti, R. (2021). Permasalahan dan Solusi untuk Meningkatkan Kompetensi dan Kualitas Guru : Sebuah Kajian Pustaka. Scholaria : Jurnal Pendidikan Dan Kebudayaan.

Ibrahim. (2021). Pelaksanaan Supervisi Kinerja Guru di SMP IT Izzuddin Palembang. El-Idare: Journal of Islamic Education Management, 7(2), 13–25.

Ibrahim, Aulia, D. R., & Setyaningsih, K. (2022). GAYA KEPEMIMPINAN DEMOKTRATIS KEPALA SEKOLAH. Produ: Jurnal Manajemen Pendidikan Islam, 4(2), 11–21.

Juhji, & Suardi, A. (2018). Profesi Guru dalam Mengembangkan Kemampuan Berpikir Kritis Peserta Didik di Era Globalisasi. Jurnal Genealogi PAI, 5(1), 16–24. https://jurnal.uinbanten.ac.id/index.php/geneologi/article/view/1043

Kartana, T. J. (2010). Pembinaan Profesional Guru dalam Konteks Manajemen Pendidikan. Cermin, 047.

Latiana, L. (2019). Peran Sertifikasi Guru Dalam Meningkatkan Profesionalisme Pendidik. Edukasi.

Leal Filho, W., Skanavis, C., Kounani, A., Brandli, L. L., Shiel, C., Paço, A. do, Pace, P., Mifsud, M., Beynaghi, A., Price, E., Salvia, A. L., Will, M., & Shula, K. (2019). The role of planning in implementing sustainable development in a higher education context. Journal of Cleaner Production, 235, 678–687. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.06.322

Masanah, M., Sunandar, S., & Nurkolis, N. (2020). Pengaruh Budaya Organisasi Dan Motivasi Berprestasi Terhadap Kompetensi Profesional Guru Sekolah Dasar Negeri Di Kecamatan Bonang Kabupaten Demak. Jurnal Manajemen Pendidikan (JMP), 8(3). https://doi.org/10.26877/jmp.v8i3.5397

Mulford, B. (2003). School Leaders : Changing Roles and Impact on Teacher and School Effectiveness. April, 1–67.

Mustofa. (2012). Upaya Pengembangan Profesionalisme Guru di Indonesia. Jurnal Ekonomi Dan Pendidikan. https://doi.org/10.21831/jep.v4i1.619

Rohmansyah, N. A. (2018). Manajemen Pengembangan Kompetensi Profesional Guru Pendidikan Jasmani Sekolah Menengah Atas (SMA) Negeri di Kota Yogyakarta. JOSSAE : Journal of Sport Science and Education, 3(1), 47. https://doi.org/10.26740/jossae.v3n1.p47-54

Sabandi, A. (2013). Supervisi Pendidikan Untuk Pengembangan Profesionalitas Guru Berkelanjutan. Pedagogi: Jurnal Ilmu Pendidikan, 13(2), 1. https://doi.org/10.24036/pedagogi.v13i2.4275

Saputri, D. I. (2022). Pentingnya Peran guru profesional dalam meningkatkan pendidikan. Pusat Publikasi S-1 Pendidikan IPS FKIP ULM, 1–12.

Sugiyono. (2014). Metode Penelitian Pendidikan Pendekatan Kuantitatif, Kualitatif, dan R & D. Alfabeta.

Sugiyono. (2022). Metode Penelitian Kualitatif. Alfabeta.

Sukanti. (2013). Pengembangan Profesi Guru Secara Berkelanjutan. Jurnal Pendidikan, 1–47.

Sutikno, A. (2018). Upaya peningkatan kompetensi guru melalui pengembangan diri. Prosiding “Profesionalisme Guru Abad XXI”, Seminar Nasional IKA UNY, 1, 45–57.

Tomlinson, H. (2004). Educational leadership: Personal growth for professional development. Educational Leadership: Personal Growth for Professional Development, 1–226. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446247150

Wibowo, C. H. (2015). PROBLEMATIKA PROFESI GURU DAN SOLUSINYA BAGI PENINGKATAN KUALITAS PENDIDIKAN DI MTs. NEGERI NGUNTORONADI KABUPATEN WONOGIRI. In Media.Neliti.Com.

• Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)

Copyright (c) 2024 Amilda, Jumhur

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Dengan mengirimkan naskah artikel, berarti penulis setuju dengan segala kebijakan yang ditetapkan oleh jurnal dan penerbit.

Penulis menyatakan bahwa:

• kebijakan ini telah diketahui dan disetujui bersama oleh semua penulis;
• naskah artikel belum dipublikasikan secara resmi sebelumnya di media ber-ISSN atau ber-ISBN yang terdaftar, kecuali dalam bentuk abstrak atau sebagai bagian dari materi kuliah, atau skripsi/tesis/disertasi yang tidak diterbitkan;
• naskah tidak sedang dalam proses editorial dan dipertimbangkan untuk publikasi di tempat lain;
• publikasi naskah ini telah disetujui oleh semua penulis, institusi afiliasi penulis, otoritas yang bertanggung jawab, dan lembaga di mana kegiatan telah dilakukan;
• naskah berisi materi yang aman dari pelanggaran hak cipta;

Perjanjian Hak Cipta dan Lisensi

• Penulis memiliki hak cipta dan hak kepemilikan lainnya yang terkait dengan artikel.
• Penulis memiliki hak dan diizinkan untuk menggunakan substansi artikel untuk karya-karya penulis berikutnya, termasuk untuk keperluan bahan/materi kuliah dan buku.
• Penulis menyerahkan hak publikasi pertama kepada jurnal dengan di bawah Lisensi Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) .

Pernyataan Lisensi CC BY 4.0

Anda diperbolehkan:.

• Berbagi — menyalin dan menyebarluaskan kembali materi ini dalam bentuk atau format apapun;
• Adaptasi — menggubah, mengubah, dan membuat turunan dari materi ini untuk kepentingan apapun, termasuk kepentingan komersial.

Pemberi lisensi tidak dapat mencabut ketentuan di atas sepanjang Anda mematuhi ketentuan lisensi berikut ini.

• Atribusi — Anda harus mencantumkan nama yang sesuai, mencantumkan tautan terhadap lisensi, dan menyatakan bahwa telah ada perubahan yang dilakukan. Anda dapat melakukan hal ini dengan cara yang sesuai, namun tidak mengisyaratkan bahwa pemberi lisensi mendukung Anda atau penggunaan Anda.
• Tidak ada pembatasan tambahan — Anda tidak dapat menggunakan ketentuan hukum atau sarana kontrol teknologi yang secara hukum membatasi orang lain untuk melakukan hal-hal yang diizinkan lisensi ini.

Didaktika: Jurnal Kependidikan diterbitkan oleh South Sulawesi Education Development (SSED) telah melalui proses tinjauan sejawat sebelum dipublikasikan. Jurnal, Editor dan dewan redaksi berhak atau berkewajiban untuk menarik artikel atas data yang tidak akurat dan menyesatkan jika ada. Baca Kebijakan Plagiarisme dan penggunaan situs ini menandakan persetujuan Anda terhadap Ketentuan Penggunaan.

© 2020-2024 Didaktika: Jurnal Kependidikan

Lessons on Nurturing Hearts and Minds

• Posted May 6, 2024
• By Elizabeth M. Ross
• Career and Lifelong Learning
• Families and Community
• K-12 School Leadership
• K-12 System Leadership
• Moral, Civic, and Ethical Education

Irvin Scott has long believed that everyone has a story worth telling and, after reaching a 30-year milestone in his career, he decided it was time to tell his own. The result is Leading with Heart and Soul: 30 Inspiring Lessons of Faith, Learning, and Leadership for Educators , based on Scott’s experiences as a parent, teacher, principal, district superintendent, foundation leader, and senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Scott recently sat down to share some macro lessons from his new book which he says he wrote to encourage and support others from all walks of life “to do the hard and fulfilling work of educating America’s future.” 

Lesson 1: The power of journaling  

At the end of every chapter of Scott’s new book, readers will find a page to write down their personal thoughts and reflections on what they have read. In sharing his professional and personal story, Scott says he hopes to spark interest in others to do the same. “I'm a big proponent of journaling,” he explains. “I think inspiration comes oftentimes in the moment and can be fleeting and so I wanted to be tactical about that belief by giving people an opportunity to jot down what comes to them and maybe planting the seed for their own lessons going forward.”

In a world in which he sees increasing disconnection and divisiveness, Scott also considers sharing stories to be a vital way for people to connect and build community. 

Lesson 2: Being attentive to deposits and withdrawals  

While being an educator can be rewarding, burnout is a well-known risk. “Pouring out [for others] is just what we do” says Scott, who has been motivated throughout his career by a desire to see young people succeed. Among the many quotes included in Leading with Heart and Soul is one from psychologist Beverly Daniel Tatum: “If you’re going to do the work of educating children at a high level, it’s going to require that you make a lot of withdrawals.“ In response to that challenge, Scott, who is a Christian, writes about the “divine deposits” that have sustained him through prayer, and also about a hobby he discovered later in life which he says helps him to disconnect and recharge — playing golf.

Lesson 3: Being present for your loved ones 

Scott shares the joys and challenges he has experienced in trying to balance a demanding career, including his former role as chief academic officer in Boston Public Schools, with being a father and a husband. He has encountered other educational leaders who have made an impact with their work but whose families have suffered as a consequence, he says, and devotes a chapter to why “you can’t raise American’s children if yours don’t know you.” One step Scott took to connect with his three sons, Leon, Irvin, and Nicholas, as they were growing up, was to coach each of them in their favorite team sports: soccer, football, and basketball. 

Lesson 4: Following your passion and bringing your full self to the work

Scott believes it is important for educators to bring their passions and their full selves to their work. He loves singing and, when he was an English teacher at J.P. McCaskey High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, served as director of the school’s gospel choir.  Nowadays, one of the courses Scott teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is called Faith, Education, and Leadership and, he says, he is in the process of creating a set of norms and practices for education leaders to be able to safely talk about their faith. A firm supporter of the separation of church and state, Scott says the process must involve educators of faith becoming better at listening to other people’s perspectives and not trying to convince them to think or believe what they do.

The latest research, perspectives, and highlights from the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Related Articles

What I Learned About Mentoring Principals

Doing Good Work

How to Sustain Black Educators

New book emphasizes need to advance beyond workforce diversity efforts focused purely on recruitment and retention 

  Rwandan Journal of Education Journal / Rwandan Journal of Education / Vol. 7 No. 2 (2024) / Articles (function() { function async_load(){ var s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.async = true; var theUrl = 'https://www.journalquality.info/journalquality/ratings/2405-www-ajol-info-rje'; s.src = theUrl + ( theUrl.indexOf("?") >= 0 ? "&" : "?") + 'ref=' + encodeURIComponent(window.location.href); var embedder = document.getElementById('jpps-embedder-ajol-rje'); embedder.parentNode.insertBefore(s, embedder); } if (window.attachEvent) window.attachEvent('onload', async_load); else window.addEventListener('load', async_load, false); })();  

Article sidebar.

Article Details

Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) was issued with copyright registration Certificate No. Rw-C10000866 by the Office of the Registrar General in accordance to the Rwandan IPR Law No. 31/2009. 

N.B .: KIE is now a College of Education, constituent of the University of Rwanda in accordance to the Rwandan Law No. 71/2013 of 10/09/2013 establishing the University of Rwanda (UR), and the College of Education as shown on  its website: http://www.ce.ur.ac.rw/

Main Article Content

Effectiveness of continuous professional development training on lower secondary school mathematics and science teachers’ content knowledge in rwanda, pheneas nkundabakura, theophile nsengimana, eugenie uwamariya, pascasie nyirahabimana, jean baptiste nkurunziza, jane batamuliza, concilie mukamwambali, jean claude dushimimana, ezechiel nsabayezu.

The present research aimed to showcase the progress made by Mathematics and Science teachers at the lower secondary school level who participated in Continuous Professional Development (CPD) training sponsored by the World Bank Group through the Rwanda Quality Basic Education for Human Capital Development (RQBEHCD) project's Subcomponent 1.2. The study encompassed 652 teachers specializing in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. Pre- and post-tests were given to teachers before and after the CPD training, using a quasi-experimental research methodology. The data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2016 and SPSS v.25. Results demonstrate a considerable improvement in teachers' understanding of the subject, as well as significant learning gains in their teaching careers. Significant gains were found in female chemistry teachers performing better than male chemistry teachers. It is recommended that further CPD trainings are required to further improve teachers' subject knowledge.

AJOL is a Non Profit Organisation that cannot function without donations. AJOL and the millions of African and international researchers who rely on our free services are deeply grateful for your contribution. AJOL is annually audited and was also independently assessed in 2019 by E&Y.

Your donation is guaranteed to directly contribute to Africans sharing their research output with a global readership.

• For annual AJOL Supporter contributions, please view our Supporters page.

Journal Identifiers