How Can We Improve Professional Development?

By: Sundjata Sekou

Published: March 7, 2025 Last Updated: March 7, 2025

This article originally appeared on NEA.org

Raise your hand if you like your district’s mandatory professional development.

Raise your hand if the professional development your district offers gives you hours to maintain your certification.

Raise your hand if you prefer to be “professionally developed” instead of working with students, parents, or your colleagues.

If you are like me, your hands remain down, and you’ve never been to a “dope” (great) district-sponsored professional development. 

I have been to in-services, trainings, and workshops to be “professionally developed.” But they have all been “whack” (extremely bad). 

What makes these professional developments whack is that they have been led by consultants—individuals who were never educators—who seemingly “throw together” a “training” that the school districts mandate. For example, a small group training that remains in a large group the entire time. I have also been directed to appear somewhere to be trained on a district program, show up to the training, tried to ask a question, and then told that the question is going into the “parking lot.”

Even worse, the trainings are often mind-numbingly boring!

To find out why so much of district-sponsored professional development is the bane of many educators' existence, NEA Today interviewed Derron Cook, a Career and Technical Education Instructor and local president in St. John the Baptist Parish in Louisiana, and Petal Robertson, a high school English teacher in the Montclair School District, and secretary-treasurer of the New Jersey Education Association, to discuss district-sponsored professional development. 

What are your feelings about district-sponsored professional development?

Derron Cook: My thoughts on district-sponsored professional developments (PDs) are that, while it’s a good idea to inform teachers of changes within the district, holding PD sessions for this purpose is a waste of time and opportunity for most of the school’ staff involved.

Educators have told me they dread these events. “This PD session could have been an email,” is a common refrain.

Petal Robertson: I’m not opposed to district-sponsored PD, but its efficiency depends on the labor-management relationship between locals and their administration. A good relationship would allow for a needs-based conversation about what the PD looks like. As a member of my executive committee in my local association, we were allowed to design and implement our entire PD Day. It was one of the best attended and highly touted ones of my career because we didn’t just “feed” people. Instead, we fed them the “food “– the information -- they wanted to consume.

What about PD is not working?

DC: PD is necessary for good reasons., They can be a good source of information for educators and make them aware of district improvements and shortcomings. What makes them bad is the lack of imagination when engaging their target audience. Most of these events are generally centered on how the district and educators are performing and what could be done to improve upon these results, especially when it pertains to learning. Instead of inspiring staff, they add to their feelings of stress by adding to an already heavy and robust to-do list of tasks within an educator’s daily responsibilities.

PR: So many things can tank your PD experience. Too often, districts design professional development days that feel like “busy work.” That’s professional development that is poorly planned out and not pertinent to the immediate needs of the educators. Poor structure can ruin your PD efforts as well. Sensitive and/or complex topics that really require full attention and participation should not be done with big groups in giant auditoriums. That is a recipe for disaster.

Duration is also a spoiler. Some districts think they need to account for every second of eight full hours. They do not. Instead, they should be conscious of the need for breaks in the day and time set aside for educators to have some autonomy. I don’t know of an educator who would not benefit from uninterrupted time to get some work done. Finally, districts forget joy. PD is often a day people dread because it can be heavy and boring. Districts should remember to include things like music, celebrations, recognitions, etc.

What could we improve district-sponsored professional development?

DC: One way is to be creative and think outside of the box. Make PDs fun and creative by getting outside of our familiar spaces and giving educators a break from looking at slide after dreadful slide. Take educators on imaginative field trips to provide a change in scenery, invigorate, and spark creative ways of accepting and relating to information, the same way educators try to engage learners in the classroom.

Most educators that I encounter are lively and want to provide an environment that is conducive to creative and imaginative learning. In the same manner, it is time for districts to think outside of the box so that our educators can learn and apply innovative solutions to make students learn the most engaging.

If you had to create a professional development workshop for classroom teachers, what would it be, and how would you connect it to their practice?

DC: As a creative, and lover of art and museums, I would create a PD centered on engaging educators using the visual arts. I would find ways to engage educators in the process of viewing and interpreting art, within a museum setting, to allow them to make visual and intellectual correlations to topics and subject matters in History, Art, English, etc. thus creating a visual aid to engage student learners in critical thinking and problem solving, or as a way to relay or connect a visual reference to assist in content retention. Not only does it provide an escape and change of scenery for educators, but it allows them to find creative ways to reach learners.

Educators would be encouraged to not only view art but also be encouraged to make their own multi-sensory engagement, as would be expected of student learners. Drawing references to the topic or subject matter allows for physical interaction through hand movements, which activates different areas of the brain and enhances the strengthening of memory pathways.

Likewise, this method also allows for active processing of the subject matter. It forces the learner to create an active interoperation and translate information into a visual form.  This would allow the learner to create a deeper comprehension and recall of what is being taught. Lastly, this process would allow learners to utilize visual cues created during the learning and engagement process for the recalling and retention of learned and processed information.

PR: “Me and You, Your Mama and Your Cousin Too” – Incorporating Community and Culture in Your School Climate. I would help educators understand the value of inclusive lessons and school programming. As well as how to incorporate the community in your teaching.

Creating a Paradigm Shift in Educator Professional Development

Pay teachers a stipend to create a professional development workshop for their colleagues. Instead of demanding that teachers create a workshop that adds to their workload, offer teachers payment to present a lesson idea or teaching strategy to their colleagues. 

Make the professional development grade level specific. Elementary, middle, and high school teachers are in different educational worlds, so they should never meet together for professional development purposes. At the elementary level, the educational needs of Pre-Kindergarten students are different from second grade, and third grade is different from fifth grade, so do not lump these grade levels into professional development groups. 

Professional development should be limited to four times a year. Teachers need time to analyze, evaluate, and implement “dope” good professional development. 

Professional development should not be pre-k nap time. It should be fun and engaging, not coma-inducing lectures. 

Professional development should be relevant to the school community. Ask teachers what they want to see, learn, and hear.

Every student deserves a highly qualified, well-prepared teacher in their classroom. To that end, PD should be part of the professional learning continuum—an ongoing process. When initiating professional development programs, districts should implement adult learning theory—or andragogy—when developing PD and professional learning. The definition of adult learning theory or andragogy is that “adults are self-directed learners, they draw on their life experiences, they need to understand the relevance of learning to their lives, they are motivated by practical problem-solving, and they prefer to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their learning; essentially, adults want to know why they need to learn something and how it applies to their real-world situations.”

_____________________________________________________________________

In 2023, I was tired of attending whack professional development (PD) sessions, so I created a PD entitled Racial Literacy Circles: Hip-Hop Edition. In the session, I use Hip-Hop lyrics to analyze and develop strategies to benefit students and K-12 public school employees to create an improved educational environment.

In the session, there is music, conversations, “turn and talk,” and educators share educational strategies. There is no cursing nor racial epithets. There is also “fulljoy.” Upon attending several of these sessions, Derron Cook stated that Racial Literacy Circles: Hip-Hop Edition “space creatively and successfully takes music, which is common to all beings, and transforms it into an educational tool for reaching adult learners so that they may relate and relay the same tools learned to our student learners, a goal that district professional developments should aim to have as its learning outcome and takeaway for educators.

In this space, educators are transformed into singing and dancing participants while learning how to bring lyrical metaphors to life for learning engagement. This is what most educators would deem as a successful PD and one that they would look forward to attending in the future.” —Sundjata Sekou

Sundjata Sekou (pronounced Sund-Jata Say-Coo) is a Hip-Hop loving, “dope,” Black, male, elementary school teacher in Irvington, N.J., and NEA’s 2024 – 2025 writer-in-residence. With support from his union sisters and brothers in the NJEA Members of Color Affinity group, he received the 2024 New Jersey Education Association Urban Educator Activist Award. You can follow him on Instagram @blackmaleteacher and email him at [email protected].