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Professional Learning Plans: A Workbook for States, Districts, and Schools

From Learning Forward: “Professional learning plans establish short- and long-term guidance for professional learning and its implementation. This workbook offers information and tools to walk educators through seven planning steps, from data analysis to setting goals to identifying learning designs to monitoring impact. Effective plans help individuals, schools, districts, and states to coordinate learning experiences designed to achieve outcomes for educators and students.”

Content Comments

This resource focused on professional learning plans that will help the user to establish short- and long-term plans for faculty professional learning to guide individuals, schools, districts, and states in coordinating learning experiences designed to achieve outcomes for educators and students. Its focus on a 7-step plan for identifying and implementing effective plans is extensive and complimented by numerous tools aligned to the 7 steps. The quality of these tools varies and some (SMART Goals) might already be quite familiar to the users. Its usefulness as a tool (if all steps were followed, and tools used) might prove to be too time consuming, but having the ability to use specific sections or templates could add value and thoughtfulness to any purposeful goal of designing professional development to impact student achievement outcomes. Some sections (e.g., Plan Professional Learning Implementation and Evaluation) have valuable resources that help planners consider a range of different professional development models to help match design to need and purpose. Use of these tools could add effectiveness to educator practice outcomes.

Resource Type

Guidance