At Sheffield Institute of Education, we have spent many years improving professional development for teachers, changing policy and practice in England, and helping to create new frameworks for career-long training. So far, our work has helped over 10,000 teachers improve their knowledge, skills, and their motivation to keep teaching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve shown the importance of continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers. Now, in this new project, we want to explore how CPD is implemented. Because if we don\u2019t get that right, good CPD can be rendered ineffective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This project is about articulating the implementation of CPD. There is plenty of research about what makes effective CPD, focusing on the mechanisms, qualities and features of CPD that lead to impactful development. But what’s missing is implementation. You can have the best CPD programmes in the world \u2014 but if you can’t implement them, nothing happens. Furthermore, the implementation process can actually change the mechanisms of the CPD \u2014 those active ingredients that make it work \u2014 so that they don’t work any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How can implementation affect CPD success?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many multi-layered ways in which CPD can be affected by its implementation. Recently we evaluated a project called the Multiplicative Reasoning Project<\/a>, teaching proportional reasoning in mathematics at Key Stage 3. The CPD followed the recommended approaches, and the curriculum material was research-based. But there was an issue with the engagement and participation of teachers in schools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n CPD isn\u2019t about giving teachers a lecture \u2014 it’s about trying things out in school, experimenting, and changing practice in the classroom. So it needs engagement from the school and from the teacher. But the schools had different levels of money and staffing to manage. Some schools could engage with it and some couldn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s not just resources. On another CPD project around maths computing in Years 5 and 6, we found the main barrier to engagement among teachers was the SATS. Exam and league table pressures on schools meant that, in these year groups, anything that wasn\u2019t directly linked to improving SATS results fell by the wayside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another large factor in the success of CPD is school leadership. Are professional development leaders being supported by their schools? Are their working conditions allowing them to dedicate enough time to it? Do the school leaders buy into the importance of teacher development?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our aims<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With this project, we want to firstly identify the mechanisms <\/strong>\u2014 at policy level and in school environments \u2014 that influence the implementation of CPD. And then we want to develop implementation guidance<\/strong> to support change for sustained, embedded improvement in teachers\u2019 CPD in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re not looking for a one-size-fits-all solution. We want to develop tools for practitioners to make choices that are right for their own circumstances. And we want to understand how to change a school environment to make it more likely for CPD to happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re building on previous research to determine what we need to do on a national and international level, to ensure that teachers participate in the professional development they deserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Sheffield Institute of Education, we have spent many years improving professional development for teachers, changing policy and practice in England, and helping to create new frameworks for career-long training. So far, our work has helped over 10,000 teachers improve their knowledge, skills, and their motivation to keep teaching. We\u2019ve shown the importance of continuing … Continue reading When it comes to CPD, implementation matters<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.shu.ac.uk\/psemc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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