Dive Brief:

• While teacher professional development is linked with higher student test scores, identifying which elements of training lead to those positive outcomes is still a mixed bag, according to a report released last week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
• Out of five meta-analyses that measured the effectiveness of teacher professional development reviewed by the GAO, researchers found the following elements of PD were each positively correlated in at least one study with student outcomes: coaching, collaboration, a focus on how to use curriculum materials, and pedagogical content knowledge. 
• Separately, teachers who responded to GAO's questionnaire said collaborative professional development — such as professional learning communities that help them exchange resources, reflections and ideas — was useful to them.

Dive Insight:

While administrators and superintendents spend a considerable amount of time and resources on professional development, research on those investments and their outcomes are mixed.

A 2015 study by The New Teacher Project found the 50 largest school districts in the U.S. were spending a total of $8 billion a year on teacher development, using roughly 19 full school days of the average teacher’s time annually. Despite this investment, the extra training had no clear effect on teacher performance or improvement, the study found.

Professional development was also a common area of investment for pandemic relief funds, with approximately 2 in 5 districts saying they would spend those dollars on teacher training, according to a 2022 FutureEd analysis. 

GAO's findings on teachers' preference for collaborative learning within professional development have also been echoed in earlier research. In a nationally representative RAND survey of K-12 Public school teachers in 2022-23, 67% of respondents said collaborative learning opportunities improved their teaching or their students’ learning. 

“The most useful professional development for me has been collaborative learning with colleagues, job-embedded coaching, and hands-on workshops focused on specific instructional strategies," one teacher told GAO in the agency’s own survey. "These formats allowed me to immediately apply what I learned, receive feedback, and adapt practices to fit my students’ needs." 

Professional development often evolves along with the education landscape. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, teachers in many districts received training on remote learning. Recent topics that have joined the professional development discussion include artificial intelligence training.