How Teachers Learn Best: An Ongoing Professional Development Model

Traditional professional development often incorporates methods not aligned with active learning. Teachers typically sit and listen to an expert who advocates hands-on learning for students but puts little of this talk into practice during the training. This style of professional development is not only hypocritical but outdated and a disservice to professional educators. Teachers deserve better and can have what they need in a relatively inexpensive manner-by being given time to maintain a vibrant connection between training and practice. Ongoing professional development fosters the kind of support teachers do not have within their traditional culture of isolation. Fiszer shows that teachers learn best through an ongoing professional development model that marks a cultural shift from one of traditional isolation to one befitting an educational practitioner. How Teachers Learn Best reveals whether or not teachers believe professional development components such as reflective dialogue and peer observation can positively impact their teaching. The literature emphasizes a laboratory-type setting where teachers recognize their environment as learning enriched rather than learning impoverished. This book provides an excellent starting point for the shift in structure from one-shot, atheorectical, passive professional development sessions to sustained, proactive, theory-based activities that are part of a culture of ongoing professional development.