Professional Learning and COI

Effective professional development builds the knowledge, skills and qualities of teachers to improve the outcomes of their students. When teachers engage in effective professional development: their enhanced knowledge and skills improve their teaching. their improved teaching then enhances their students' outcomes.

At St Joseph's, who and what professional learning is is determined by a number of factors. At St Joseph's we use the four stages of the High Quality Professional Learning Cycle.

Stage 1: Identifying a professional learning need

Lay the foundation for a high quality professional learning experience by carefully considering your professional learning needs. This will enable you to select professional learning that’s relevant for you and your context.

Professional learning needs may be at the individual level, or may apply across a department or entire learning environment.

You may wish to discuss with your colleagues and/or leadership whether there are current opportunities for a more collegial approach to professional learning, based on wider needs.

When determining your professional learning needs, also consider the needs of learners.

If there are particular areas where your learners are struggling, or where you would like to take their learning further, this may indicate an area where professional learning would be helpful.

Resources such as the Teacher Self-Assessment Tool (Teacher SAT) may help you identify your professional learning needs.

Stage 2: Selecting and undertaking professional learning

Summary

It’s important to remember that professional learning can take many forms. There are many types of professional learning besides the conventional conferences and external courses that may be more effective, depending on your learning needs.

It is often most beneficial to engage in professional learning that is collaborative and job-embedded. For example, you may wish to undertake action research; trial and observe new practices with colleagues; engage with a professional learning community; or analyse videos of practice (such as AITSL’s Illustrations of Practice) as a group.

At St Joseph's when professional learning has been identified staff will be either 1. recommended to undertake a course by the senior leadership team or they will seek opportunity to undertake a course by speaking with the Senior Leadership team putting forward the reasons for attending Professional Learning. 

A professional learning register is kept as part our School Improvement plan to show how the professional learning meets the needs of the students.

Stage 3: Applying professional learning

Summary

Application of learning is a core component in an ongoing high quality professional learning cycle. Actively apply your understanding, make revisions to practice, and trial and implement new ideas and approaches at this stage. This may take place in the learning environment with learners, or it may have a stronger impact on your interactions with colleagues.

While a learning design can support implementation, you have the responsibility to decide whether and how to implement a change. Implementation continues the process of your learning. As you monitor the impact of new approaches, or reflect on application of new strategies and skills, the pedagogical part of content learning takes place. As adjustments need to be made, new theoretical knowledge or peer collaborations may be sought.

Stage 4: Evaluating overall impact

Summary

Evaluating the impact of your professional learning may not always be easy, as it will take time to impact your teaching practice and learner outcomes. Where possible, it can be helpful to collect quantitative or qualitative data to help you identify trends in changes to your practice or learner outcomes. These trends may help you to make valid inferences about the impact of your professional learning.