Summary
The PD cycle is structured to enhance educators' skills and knowledge for preparing and facilitating professional development. It is carried out through continuous learning and reflection with a mentor or PD specialist. It begins with identifying specific needs or goals and planning professional learning experiences. Educators then facilitate the professional learning opportunity and continue to support their peers in implementing new tools and strategies. The cycle concludes with reflecting on the professional learning experience, identifying areas for improvement, and planning for the next cycle, ensuring ongoing professional growth.
Essential Questions
How can teacher leaders effectively design, facilitate, and reflect on professional development to support their own growth and meet the learning needs of their colleagues?
Learning Goals
Make a plan to meet the professional learning needs of their school community.
Develop and Facilitate a professional development (PD) session for their school community.
Engage in self-reflection and gather constructive feedback to improve their PD planning and facilitation skills.
Snapshot
Engage: Pre-Planning: Layout goals and important details of the professional development session that will be facilitated.
Explore: Pre-Planning: Explore participants goals for their facilitation and a run through of the professional development session.
Explain: Pre-Planning: Establish next steps and action items.
Extend: Observation: Facilitation of the professional development session.
Evaluate: Debrief: Reflect on the professional development session and explore areas of growth.
Materials List
Goal Setting Meeting Notecatcher
Planning Meeting Notecatcher
PD Checklist and Cycle handout
Debrief Meeting Notecatcher
5E Reflection Tool
Authenticity Reflection Tool
SCORE Reflection
Engage
First, inform your teacher leader that you will be taking notes to track their professional learning goals and progress. Then, go over the items you plan to address in this meeting.
The first goal will be to look at prospective dates for facilitating a professional learning activity at their school and to who they would be presenting.
The second goal is to identify some topics for professional learning that they expect would be valuable to their audience of teachers.
The last goal of this meeting is for participants to discuss areas of personal and professional growth related to this facilitation experience.
Next, look at a calendar together and ask the teacher leader to identify days and times that are good prospects for scheduling a professional learning activity at their school that they will facilitate. Write down the dates they suggest and let them know when you will follow up with them to confirm if they can schedule one of these options. Then, ask them to note how much time they will likely have available for their presentation and who they expect to attend the session.
Next, refer to the PD Cycle handout and point to the first box at the top of the page. Ask them to talk to you about the professional learning needs they expect to be the most relevant for their teacher audience. Make a list together of potential topics. Then, explain the next steps for determining the learning experience they will facilitate.
They will incorporate these topics into a survey (example linked, feel free to copy) that they email to their teacher audience to determine the greatest need and interest for professional learning. Set dates for when the survey will be sent out and when you will close it and review the results.
They will discuss the topics of greatest interest with the administration to get their support in facilitating the PD.
They will share the final decision regarding the PD's topic, along with the scheduled day and time, with their teacher audience as soon in advance as possible.
Then, talk with your teacher leader about what they hope to work on and improve in their facilitation of this experience. For example, they may want to improve their confidence in presenting to their peers or building relationships with other teachers. Take notes to refer back to it in later meetings and share how you’ve observed their growth in these areas.
Before the meeting is over, talk about when you will meet next to review survey results and select a professional learning activity to facilitate.
Explore
At the beginning of the meeting, look at the topic the teacher leader has identified and prepare a list of professional learning activity suggestions that you know are high quality and might meet the need.
Start the meeting by reviewing the items you plan to address during your time together.
Reviewing the survey results and the topic they’ve selected for their PD
Explore the K20 LEARN website to find potential professional learning activities on the selected topic.
Identify places in the found professional learning activity that align with the areas of growth discussed in the last meeting.
Outline a plan for promoting and preparing for their PD.
Next, navigate together to the K20 LEARN website (learn.k20center.ou.edu). Locate the “Professional Learning” tab. Once here, use the search bar to see if keywords related to the topic bring up anything interesting.
Provide some time for the teacher leader to browse and explore the site and take notes on anything that interests them in their planning meeting note catcher.
After some searching on their own, check-in and see how their search is going. You may share some of the options you identified in advance and let them review those for consideration alongside anything they have found for themselves.
Once a leading candidate has been chosen, look through the narrative and ask your teacher leader if they see ways they will need to modify the activities to meet their teacher audience. (If they don’t find something that serves as a good starting point, this is when you can talk about creating their own PD using the 5E reflection tool, the Authenticity Reflection tool, and LEARN strategies).
Also, ask them to identify ways the facilitation of this PD will push them to grow in the areas discussed during your last meeting.
Finally, remind the teacher leader to begin promoting this PD topic and date immediately through email, Calendar Invite, Staff Newsletter, Flyers, etc.
Before the meeting is over, talk about when you will meet next to do a practice run of the professional learning activity.
Explain
Go into this meeting with the mindset that your teacher leader is leading. Let them greet and set up the tone of the space however they see fit. If they start off by deferring to you, explicitly invite them to take the lead.
Observe the teacher leader as they do their practice run of the professional learning session. As you watch, take notes on how the facilitation of the PD supports authenticity and 5E. Also, note how they are showing progress in the professional growth goal they have set for themselves.
Following the practice run, ask the teacher leader to share with you their initial thoughts and feelings about how it went. Here are some questions that might guide your conversation:
What was your favorite part to facilitate?
What was the hardest part to facilitate?
Where do you feel you need to spend more time preparing?
Do you see anything that you need to change before presenting to your teacher audience?
You can respond to their observations and provide tips on how to best model authenticity or 5E. Be sure to share with the teacher specific moments where you noticed they supported authenticity and 5E well.
Also, note any progress towards their professional growth goal and where you noticed it in their preparation for this PD so far.
Before the meeting is over, remind the teacher leader to continue to prepare for their PD in the following ways:
Send an email reminder 7 days before the PD.
Double-check that they have all the materials/handouts/copies/posters ready.
Check all links and websites.
Practice, practice, practice
PD should be internalized. A script should not be needed since your PowerPoint and handouts are the tools you use to guide the process and progress of a PD.
Practice in front of a mirror, with a small group, in your car, etc.
Practice the strategies with your students so that you have a true experience to share how it went when implemented and what you might change for the next time.
Extend
Send an email to your teacher leader to confirm the date and time and your attendance at their PD. Send a helpful list of tips to support them in setting up their session:
send a final reminder to their participants a day before the session. This can happen through multiple channels, such as an intercom announcement, placing notes in mailboxes, and calendar notifications to ensure visibility.
Plan to arrive at the location early to help set up materials and prepare the space.
Verify that all technical equipment, such as the projector and sound, is working properly.
Place the sign-in sheet in a visible spot.
Distribute any handouts, notebooks, or materials on tables in advance.
Facilitation Adjustments:
Evaluate the group size at the start and adjust any planned activities to suit the number of attendees.
Be sure to have a plan for gathering participate feedback on the PD either through discussion, a survey, or feedback cards. Feedback should focus on both the content and the facilitation.
As you observe the facilitation, have the Authenticity Framework and 5E reflection tools handy. Take notes on how your teacher leader engages participants. Notice how the teacher leader interacts with participants, responds to questions, and makes any on-the-spot adjustments. These observations will be valuable in the upcoming reflection meeting.
Evaluate
Invite the teacher leader to reflect on the session using guiding questions:
What aspects of the facilitation went well?
What would you adjust if you were to facilitate the session again?
What might you focus on improving for future PD opportunities?
Encourage them to think critically about specific moments that challenged them or sparked new insights into their facilitation style.
Guide your teacher leader through the Debrief Meeting Notecatcher to help them organize their thoughts about the PD experience. This structured reflection can reveal insights into the facilitation process and highlight opportunities for further development.
Bring attention to areas where you noticed that your teacher leader showed progress towards the goals they set for themselves for continued growth.
Follow-Up Activities
Conclude by celebrating their successes and reiterating your support as they grow and contribute to professional learning within their school.
Guide your teacher leader to follow up after their PD session with teachers who were in attendance. They can mentor these teachers in implementing the strategies that were covered in the PD. Once an attendee has implemented something from the PD in their classroom, the teacher leader will review the SCORE Reflection to reflect on their implementation of that strategy.
Research Rationale
A key pillar of effective professional development is to include input, testing, and reflection phases, along with instructional coaching and feedback. These phases further expand teacher competencies over long-term, process-centered training, resulting in the further professionalization of teacher leaders (Behr et al., 2020; Curry et al., 2018). These teacher leaders can then offer training to peers and help further disseminate knowledge and develop skills across the organization, ensuring a sustainable professional development model that supports sustained whole-school growth (Behr et al., 2020; Curry et al., 2018). At this stage, the original trainers move into the role of instructional coaches and advisors who support the teacher leaders by answering questions and working through challenges they are facing while training their peers. Instructional coaches also protect the integrity of the training during this phase of implementation. This cycle repeats multiple times to develop a horizontal structure that results in everyday actions occurring inside the classroom that reflect training and skill development with support from teacher leaders who are supported by instructional coaches throughout the process (Behr et al., 2020).
Resources
Behr, J., Leidig, T., & Hennemann, T. (2020). Train-the-trainer. Professionalization for inclusion, 27(2), 6–28. https://doi.org/10.30820/0942-2285-2019-2-6
Curry, K. A., Mania-Singer, J., Harris, E., & Richardson, S. (2018). Teacher collaborative action research. Journal of School Leadership, 28(2), 173–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/105268461802800202
