National Survey: What Teachers Want from Professional Learning

Across America, what is the teacher professional learning experience like? Have teacher expectations increased? And how well have school systems and education leaders responded?

In a new attempt to start a national conversation, three education-related organizations (Corwin Publishing, the National Education Association, and Learning Forward) surveyed teachers in the United States about the type and quality of professional learning they experience. More than 6,300 responded.

The 60-item survey explored questions like:

► What do teachers want most from their professional learning?

► How do they perceive their school or district’s professional learning plans?

► Do teachers really value job-embedded, collaborative learning?

► How committed are their schools and districts to professional learning?

The report’s introduction summarizes the findings this way:

The results provide insight into how teachers view their own learning and the supports they receive.

► Teachers indicate that school and district leaders in their systems are committed to professional learning and the professional growth of teachers, but don’t necessarily include them in decision-making about it.

► They report that while student outcome data drive the planning of professional learning, data don’t seem to be used as much to assess the effectiveness of professional learning.

► Teachers agree that practicing and applying new skills in the classroom are seen as important in their schools, yet few of them report receiving adequate time for job-embedded professional learning, such as opportunities to get or give actionable feedback through observing a colleague teaching or being observed while teaching a class.

The recommendations in the report include:

► Giving teachers increased decision making in their professional learning,

► Using a variety of data sources to plan and assess professional learning, and

► Providing increased support for continuous, job-embedded professional learning.


Download The State of Teacher Professional Learning
at the Learning Forward website.