A quality professional learning program is essential for building capacity within schools so there is high competency and high commitment among professional staff to the core work of teaching and learning and continuous improvement.

Schools with high competency and commitment levels embrace the concept of professional learning communities as a philosophy and process to establish a collaborative culture with a focus on student achievement. Effective professional learning efforts are also aligned to the core work and include high-quality ongoing development with intensive follow-up and support. In addition, the most effective professional learning models incorporate processes that are research-based and designed to engage adult learners.

• Learning Communities: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students occurs within learning communities committed to continuous improvement, collective responsibility, and goal alignment.
• Leadership: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students requires skillful leaders who develop capacity, advocate, and create support systems for professional learning.
• Resources: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students requires prioritizing, monitoring, and coordinating resources for educator learning.
• Data: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students uses a variety of sources and types of student, educator, and system data to plan, assess, and evaluate professional learning.
• Learning Designs: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students integrates theories, research, and models of human learning to achieve its intended outcomes.
• Implementation: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students applies research on change and sustains support for implementation of professional learning for long-term change.
• Outcomes: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students aligns its outcomes with educator performance and student curriculum standards.

To dig deeper on Learning Forward's Standards for Professional Learning, you can visit their publication, here.