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Identifying Effective Teacher Professional Development

Do your teachers consider professional development (PD) to be just one more box to check? Or do they look forward to it?

Do they walk away refreshed, energized and filled with new ideas? Or do they leave it all behind them when it’s over?
 
Are your teachers engaged with PD activities and collaborating with their peers? Or are they just putting in their time?
 
Do your teachers feel empowered by the ideas that were shared? Or do they feel confined and fenced in?

The quality of professional development can have a positive or negative effect on teachers’ careers, school or district test scores, staff morale, and most critically, on the students themselves. It's important to provide effective teacher professional development for your educators, but how do we recognize what is effective PD and what isn't?
 

Impactful Professional Development: Mindset Matters



In some cases, changes may need to start at the top with administrators needing to shift their mindset from considering professional development to be a teaching requirement to PD being an opportunity to make a significant impact on the future of our world. And it’s not just hyperbole. It’s a serious reality – especially for the global economy as the demand grows for qualified STEM professionals.
 
“Today’s teachers are going to educate the future workforce,” said Jeremy Anderson, National Math and Science Initiative CEO. “When you look across the country there are so many open jobs in STEM fields including essential industries – such as healthcare, manufacturing and energy production – yet we don’t have enough qualified individuals for those jobs.”
 
Preparing students for these jobs is both an urgent and long-term need. Energizing and equipping educators to teach students can’t be put on the back burner. The time is now. And the resources are available.
 

Recognizing Effective Teacher Professional Development

Just as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” the ultimate determinant of value for effective teacher professional development is the impact it has on the teachers themselves.
 
“This week has been really awesome,” teacher Laeticia Guenoun said about her experience at NMSI’s 2024 GM New Teacher Academy in Houston. “(One of the things) I've gained from this experience is remembering why I love teaching and bringing my passion back.”
 
As most educators know, the school year can be grueling and stressful, but Guenoun says that being in an environment with other passionate educators reignited everything she felt when she decided to pursue teaching.
 

Deep Content Knowledge Provides a Solid Base

Although inspiring teachers to bring their passion back to the classrooms is of tremendous value, it’s also important to equip educators with the tools, knowledge, and confidence in specific subject matter.
 
The 2018 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education found that only 31% of elementary educators felt very well-prepared to teach science, compared to 77% of teachers who felt confident teaching reading. And since science, technology, and math are foundational for cumulative STEM learning, it’s critical that teachers have the resources they need to provide this enriched material to students in a way that engages children and teenagers at all grade levels.
 
NMSI recognizes the impact of deep content learning and we offer programs that put this power into the hearts, hands, and minds of educators. And when teachers gain confidence in these content areas — along with a deepened understanding of the subject matter — students achieve a boost in STEM literacy.

Black educator smiles at two STEM students building a drone in a classroom.
 

Key Elements of Effective Teacher Professional Development

When choosing PD resources that will deliver measurable results, it’s important to look for the following features:

1. Comprised of Evidence-Based Programming: High-quality evidence-based professional development provides educators (and ultimately, their students) with the tools they need to optimize the learning experience. When looking at your options, seek programs that offer timely and relevant content provided by instructors who are well-credentialed, experienced, engaging, and interactive.

Effective teacher professional development should be based upon models and pedagogies that have been proven effective and replicable, but are also flexible enough to recognize and accommodate changes in the current education landscape.

For your convenience, NMSI has created a free, downloadable guide – How to Find Evidence-Based Professional Development – that can inform your decision-making surrounding professional development for your specific needs.

2. Specific to Grade Level and Discipline: Decades of research confirms that highly skilled teachers have significant impacts on student success. In order to increase educators’ capacity to effectively teach rigorous STEM courses, effective teacher professional development starts with deep content knowledge. At NMSI, we help educators prepare students by emphasizing this in both Laying the Foundation (LTF) and the College Readiness Program (CRP).

High-quality instructional materials are one of the drivers of improved student learning outcomes. However, the path to successful implementation and knowledge transfer to students is often met with numerous challenges. High-quality, targeted professional development that focuses on grade-level and subject-specific knowledge can mitigate many of those challenges.

NMSI professional development participant and calculus teacher, Mary Beth Lawson, said that the program changed her life, “It has changed my overall way of teaching and it’s changed how I teach math. I can’t express how grateful I am to NMSI because (the program) really put me on a different level.”

3. Engaging and Interactive: “Adding collaboration time for teachers to work together can be very effective – but only if that time is well-used,” according to EdWeek. “One 2022 study 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.”

Participants in NMSI’s College Readiness Program agree with this assessment. Assistant Principal April Ragland, of Peters Township High School in Pennsylvania said, “For us, the biggest piece was a cultural change. That would not have been able to happen as quickly and to the same level if we didn’t have those professional development sessions and collaboration time.”

4. Validating and Empowering: Ineffective professional development can leave teachers feeling defeated before they even return to the classroom. But when teachers are well-equipped, supported, and confident, they will create a more engaging and dynamic learning environment, which is essential for subjects often perceived as challenging, like STEM.

In addition, validating teachers by recognizing the myriad challenges they face each day provides a confidence boost and unleashes their passion for sowing seeds of knowledge within their students. When teachers walk away from professional development filled with impactful learning, tools, strategies, and relationships, they feel empowered.

5. Provides a Framework for New Strategy Implementation: Effective teacher professional development provides results far beyond the training itself – but only if educators walk away well-equipped to create an effective learning strategy and structure in their classrooms. Presenting instructional strategies or developing them collaboratively in a professional development setting can help educators optimize the impact of the deep content knowledge they’ve gained.

“Since everyone that works at our organization has a passion for education, seeing the impact that our programs have on teachers, who then transfer that information to their students, is very rewarding," explains NMSI Program Operations Director, Deyanira Fontalvo.

Abron Lewis, teacher and attendee at the 2024 New Teacher Academy in Houston, said that participating gave him access to “a solid foundation of people who want to help and then provided all the resources needed to be an effective teacher.”

6. Includes Follow-Up Support: While some PD is a one-and-done event or a stand-alone online course, the most impactful learning doesn’t end when the professional development requirement is met. This can occur in multiple ways. At NMSI, we have systems and opportunities in place for those who want to continue to relationship.

The first is our Laying the Foundation Implementation Training that helps teachers apply what they gleaned at LTF Content Workshops by learning to implement exemplary teaching strategies in their classrooms immediately. We also offer Teacher Villages, which allow participants to connect with an expert coach outside of our training events. Yet another opportunity is one-on-one NMSI coaching, which is great for schools that lack mentorship opportunities.

“You also have a support system that you can always rely on whether that’s this organization or your network outside the organization,” Lewis added.

Two educators work on a middle grade physics problem in effective teacher professional development at a NMSI training in Fort Worth, Texas 2024.
 

The NMSI Experience: The Participant Perspective

Providing a full continuum of effective teacher professional development is both an art and a science. At National Math and Science Initiative, we address the relational aspect of education alongside the critical deep content knowledge and classroom strategy teachers crave. One of the best ways to convey how we do this is by sharing the stories of those who have participated in our programs. Here’s what attendees of our General Motors New Teacher Academy in Houston had to say:
 
Kelsey Gaines, Senior Manager for STEM Education at General Motors: “The New Teacher Academy was a splendid experience from start to finish,” Gaines said. “It was so wonderful to see the teachers interacting with all the facilitators and coaches, as well as each other, and really building that community. You can feel the love they’ve created over the past couple of days. Seeing the information being absorbed is truly fantastic.”
 
Abron Lewis, Teacher, Middle School Math, Alief Independent School District: “The reason why I decided to come to New Teacher Academy was to try to absorb and learn as much information as I can that will better help me be a more effective teacher. I feel that when you make the content relatable, you’re more likely to reach your students and they'll be more willing to learn.”
 
Rebecca Peterson, 2023 Teacher of the Year and presenter at the 2024 New Teacher Academy in Houston also shared her thoughts on energizing her students: “First, ask yourself what matters to you and decide how to incorporate that into your weekly routine. Why? Because the more things that are fun for you, the more fun you’re going to have teaching. And I believe that kids deserve teachers who love teaching. Remember that joy is the oxygen for doing hard things. So, when you find things that light you up and bring you joy, do more of those things.”
 

Equitable STEM Learning Opportunities Are Essential

NMSI CEO Jeremy Anderson reminds us that every school district across the United States has students who are further from opportunity than others. “That’s why we work directly with districts that can help us to identify which schools are needing these services the most and determine how we can help their teachers enable students to have an equal opportunity at succeeding in the STEM field,” Anderson said.
 
“At National Math and Science Initiative, we really believe that if we help train teachers with the math and science resources and skills they need, then we're going to be able to truly help every child succeed in STEM industries,” Anderson continued. “It’s important for the future of our country. And it’s critical to provide equitable opportunities to every child in our nation.”