Designing High-Quality Professional Development: Reflecting on Learning

Domains

Resources

For learning to affect practice, participants need the opportunity to both 1) identify that learning has occurred, individually assessing if they’ve acquired the new knowledge or skill, and 2) reflect on how this new learning is consistent with or refines their view of their professional role and their practice. This process of identifying and reflecting involves practicing skills with constructive feedback and assessing knowledge with corrective feedback. Research suggests that teachers benefit from an opportunity to reflect on their current practice, recognize their growth as a result of feedback, and clearly identify how their practice will change (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017). Research also suggests that this opportunity to self-assess and reflect has a role in supporting teacher efficacy and, ultimately, in improved student outcomes (Ross & Bruce, 2007). Each of the indicators in this domain comprises a piece of the overall process of identifying learning that has occurred and of reflecting on how the learning will result in change in practice.

A pre- and posttest with corrective feedback can give the learner an indication of whether new knowledge and skills have been acquired. Performance assessments allow the learner to practice decision-making processes and then compare their performance to an exemplar. The impact of learning is greatly influenced by the opportunity to reflect on how the learning will influence or change practice.

The presenter should:

Provide opportunities to practice the application of knowledge or skills with corrective feedback.
Engage the participants in an assessment of their learning and reflection on how it will impact their practice.
Provide participants with evidence that they left the session having learned new knowledge or skills.

To support participants’ reflection, the local provider should:

Provide follow-up performance assessment with constructive and corrective feedback.
Engage the participants in continued reflection on the application of the content, by facilitating periodic discussions on implementation and impact.

The HQPD Checklist indicators in the domain Reflecting on Learning include:

14. Provides constructive feedback within practice opportunities to promote the acquisition of skills.

Examples:

After receiving training on how to complete an observation, participants practice completing the observation using a video example and receive corrective feedback.

The presenter has participants establish teams and practice a mock lesson using a newly learned instructional strategy, providing constructive feedback using an implementation checklist.

Participants practice analyzing various graphs of data and compare their analysis to an expert model, with the presenter providing further instruction regarding discrepancies.

Triads practice coaching skills, with one person acting as the coach, one acting as the coaching recipient, and one observing and providing feedback based on a checklist of coaching behaviors.

Each participant briefly describes their lesson plan modifications, receiving feedback from the presenter.

After each participant determines the best course of action in a case study, the presenter provides the best answer with justification, answering questions from participants.

15. Engages each participant in assessment of knowledge/skill acquisition with corrective feedback.

Examples:

The learning targets are used as a quiz with open-ended answers. Participants answer each question, and then the presenter displays and discusses the correct answers with the whole group, correcting any misconceptions.

Each participant demonstrates the use of specific procedures and receives feedback from an expert based on how to correctly complete the process.

Each participant completes a posttest and receives correct answers with a justification of why each answer is correct.

Each participant analyzes a lesson plan based on an implementation rubric and then compares the analysis to an expert model.

16. Facilitates opportunities for participants to reflect on their current practice and the influence of new learning on their future practice.

Examples:

In a worksheet, participants describe their current practices and the changes they will make to these practices based on training content.

After participants identify the new skills they have developed or refined, they edit one of their existing lesson plans to include these elements.

After participants identify new procedures for analyzing graphs to monitor progress, they edit their existing protocols to include these steps.

17. Establishes a process for participants’ continued reflection on implementation and impact.

Examples:

Expectations for a follow-up session include presentations by each participant in which they describe the implementation of each component of the practice and the results.

Through a discussion forum, participants describe the strengths of their instruction based on a practice profile, areas they plan to improve in the future, and the impact on student engagement.

Each participant’s action plan includes a timeline for self-assessment and reflection on success in meeting indicators of effectiveness.

Teams establish a process for obtaining and analyzing fidelity and outcome data as well as determining adjustments based on the data.