What does brilliant professional development look like in colleges? This question has kept brilliant minds up at night searching for an answer. Fortunately, due to recent published guidance by the Education Endowment Foundation, we are one step nearer to having the answer.
Colleges present their own issues: with a wide range of teaching experience, course types and staffing structures, professional development can be tricky to navigate. Staff need to not only know the theory, but they need to see it in action. The guidance is accompanied by an Evidence in Action episode on effective professional development in 16-19 settings (plus, listen in at 17:38 to hear our book ‘The Science of Learning’ mentioned as one of the key sources of trusted research!)
Here is a brief summary of the key points in the guidance that caught our eye:
The KEEP Framework
The central tenet of the EEF guidance report is the KEEP Framework. It stands for Knowledge, Engagement, Execution and Practice.
Knowledge
The Knowledge section is about delivering new knowledge in ways that support understanding. Here, the guidance stresses the importance of introducing new material in a manageable volume to avoid overloading practitioners. Whilst this is true of all learners – it is the second of Rosenshine’s principles, after all – it is particularly important in 16-19 settings where practitioners may have very different starting points.
We firmly believe in these principles and reflect them in our own training for teachers. For example, all courses on our Teacher CPD Academy are presented through a variety of accessible, bite-sized media – from short video clips and interactive experiments to articles and graphics. We also include quizzes so that participants can check their understanding of the material along the way.
Engagement
The Engagement section is about, you guessed it, engaging practitioners, ensuring they are motivated to act on new knowledge. A key part of this is using credible sources when developing professional development. The guidance suggests that the case for practice change needs to be made explicitly using robust research and/or trusted sources. This is something we pride ourselves on at InnerDrive; we read the original research and translate it so that it is accessible to busy educators.
The insights of educational experts and researchers can also be hard to access. This is part of why we wanted to platform so many experts on the Teacher CPD Academy: many of our courses are based on books written for our Teacher CPD Academy series and our Expert Insight series includes interviews with the academics and researchers who carry out original research.
Execution
The Execution section is about providing opportunities for practitioners to accurately develop techniques. This includes modelling – providing an observable example of the technique for practitioners to imitate.
For colleges, this can be lacking; so much of the research centres around either secondary or university age students. So, we created College Unpacked; a series of videos showcasing techniques such as Cold-Calling, Retrieval Practice and modelling in real college settings, accompanied by expert commentary from Teach Like a Champion’s Doug Lemov. The videos have proven to be an excellent starting point for discussions between colleagues on what exemplary practice looks like and how techniques can be adapted to different contexts.
Practice
The final part of KEEP is Practice, integrating purposeful and repeated practice to embed delivery. The guidance suggests using cues such as email prompts, newsletters and posters as reminders to support the continued use of a technique. For example, our approach on the Teacher CPD Academy means that each topic area features printable poster summaries and ‘Smorgasbords’ (interactive PDFs with links to academy resources). These can then be emailed out to staff to prompt them to review and revisit techniques previously covered in professional development sessions.
Final thoughts
Research will never be like a GPS, giving you exact directions to a clear destination; it is more like a compass to guide you towards success. Research evidence must always be combined with teaching experience and knowledge of your specific context. Whilst this is true for every educational establishment, it is particularly important within 16-19 settings, as robust research specifically looking at this colleges and less conventional classroom settings is more limited.
Done well, professional development is a powerful tool for improving learner outcomes and motivating educators. The EEF Guidance on Professional Development in 16-19 settings provides a welcome recognition that professional development in these settings will look different from that within secondary and primary schools.
If you would like to find out more about how InnerDrive can support your college, please do get in touch. We have a wide range of in-person workshops for teachers and students as well as the Teacher CPD Academy, all of which are strongly aligned with the key principles from this guidance report – we would love to hear from you!
