Professional Learning

To embed adult learning into the classroom is a quintessential act of Professional Learning. Approaches that facilitate this often result in effectively practicing many principles of Professional Learning.

What is professional learning?

Professional Learning (PL) explicitly connects teacher learning to student learning. Professional Learning is:

Embedded in the classroom
Ongoing rather than one time
Driven by teacher interest, student, and school needs
Enquiry into teacher practice for student learning
Evaluating PL’s impact on student learning, then responding
Performed by teachers, with teachers to create dynamic learning environment
Peer collaboration to strengthen and sustain practice
Educators and schools forming Professional Learning Partnerships

What about professional development?

Too frequently professional development does not translate into learning that makes a difference for students. The knowledge education professionals encounter in professional development rarely enters the classroom in a meaningful and sustained manner, if at all.

However, there is a body of research showing that when professional development includes an implementation focus, it can be effective. As an external provider of adult learning, the NEI concerns itself with processes and tools to assist educators to:

Embed their learning into their classroom and
Transfer learning from the workshop to the workspace.

When professional development occurs, it must build knowledge, enhance skills, and shift mindsets. Further, the learning must transfer into the classroom to positively impact student outcomes.

The NEI's Charge to Bermuda

High quality teaching is the most influential in school variable in student outcomes. As education professionals, our committed participation in professional learning is key to accessing knowledge, skills, and behaviours to heighten student outcomes. We, Bermuda’s educators, must embrace change that improves our practice. Not, as Dylan William says, because we are not good enough, but because we can be even better.

Every Teacher Can Improve

Dr. Dylan Wiliam

“Every teachers needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better.” Dylan Wiliam