CEPR Project Director Miriam Greenberg is quoted in the following Washington Post article about teacher professional development and feedback.
I used to speak at professional-development sessions for teachers, but I eventually realized I was wasting their time. Like most professional-development presentations, my speeches were not integrated with a research-tested approach to improve teaching. That meant whatever I said was unlikely to help them much, if at all.
My embarrassment has been reawakened by a new study delving deep into the uselessness of professional development. The study by the teacher-training and research group TNTP, titled “The Mirage,” reveals that teachers who are improving have the same professional-development experiences as those who aren’t. What they have learned is not having the effect it should.
Many teachers I know have long complained about professional development. TNTP found in its survey of teachers that “only about 40 percent reported that most of their professional-development activities were a good use of their time.” The study looked at three unidentified districts with a total of 400,000 students, 69 percent of them low-income — places most needing improvement in achievement.
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