Brown Bag: Contextualizing Professional Learning and Teacher Motivation: Pilot Study Findings (1/21/25)

This session covers the a pilot study conducted by Leading Educators that explores effective strategies for contextualizing professional learning in schools by addressing two key questions:

1. Effective Data Sources: What data sources are best suited to tailor professional learning to the unique needs of specific schools?
2. Stakeholder Engagement: Who should be involved in selecting, analyzing, and interpreting data, and how should this engagement occur to determine professional learning priorities?

By Laura Meili, Chief Impact Officer, Rebecca Taylor-Perryman, Managing Director of Data & Evaluation, and Tim Tasker, Senior Director of Data Strategy from Leading Educators

Schools and systems could use a variety of data to incorporate teacher input and contextualize PL, such as student learning outcomes, instructional practice observations, pedagogical knowledge, sense of self efficacy, and teacher perception of priority areas. What are the most effective data sources to contextualize professional learning to specific schools? Who should be engaged in selecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to make decisions about professional learning priorities, and how are those stakeholders best engaged? How do these choices influence teacher investment in professional learning and commitment to new practices? We sought to learn about processes for selecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to make decisions about professional learning priorities in two Leading Educators’ partner districts and how involvement in these processes influenced teachers’ and leaders’ perceptions of the quality and utility of professional learning. The study’s ultimate goal was to produce a framework to describe the continuum of approaches for gathering and using data – including stakeholder input – to design effective PL. In this Brown Bag, we will share findings and important questions for future research on PL design related to teacher agency.