DURING A RECENT WORKSHOP, a superintendent from upstate New York described how his school district had identified student writing as an area for improvement. “We’re providing literacy coaching, expert-led workshops and grade-level professional learning communities,” he said, “but we have no idea which activities, if any, are making a difference.”

Fellow education leaders in the room shared similar experiences.

To address this common need, our team at the REL Northeast & Islands published a free toolkit, Evaluating Professional Learning. Based on our work with district- and state-level teams in New York and Connecticut, the toolkit can help educators collect meaningful data to ensure professional learning for teachers has a high return on investment.

Four strategies in the toolkit are adaptable anywhere.

»Create a logic model.

At our first workshop with educators, we ask them what they want their professional learning initiatives to accomplish. Many share broad goals, such as improving student achievement or increasing graduation rates. But to evaluate professional learning, you need to define specific goals that are directly connected to student learning and aligned with the initiative’s activities. That’s where logic models come in.

A logic model will help you clearly describe the goals of your initiative and connect student outcomes, changes in teacher practice, activities and resources. Many leaders find that logic models uncover misalignment between intended outcomes and program activities. For example, as another New York school district completed its logic model, the team found they lacked specific strategies to increase student engagement. In response, they launched coaching for teachers focused on a set of instructional practices designed to build student ownership of learning.

When developed collaboratively, logic models can help your team develop a shared understanding of desired outcomes and activities. You also can use them as a tool for tracking progress and communicating with stakeholders.

»Identify stakeholders.

Brainstorm what each key group — principals, school boards, teachers — might want to know from your evaluation of professional learning. This information will help you develop and prioritize evaluation questions. 

For example, one district needed to answer school board members’ questions about whether teachers who participated in professional learning increased their use of personalized learning technology tools.

When you involve diverse stakeholders, their different perspectives strengthen the evaluation and the professional learning. Keeping stakeholders’ interests front of mind will ensure evaluation results are actionable.

»Inventory existing data.

List all of the data sources that relate to your professional learning. Then think about how each data source can help answer your evaluation questions. Often, data sources can help answer multiple questions. For example, a team of educators from the Connecticut State Department of Education leveraged existing teacher observation data to examine if and how teachers were applying professional learning. They used the same data to determine which teachers were using new strategies the most and why.

Document when data are collected and who is responsible for collecting them to help you streamline data collection activities. Finally, look for gaps in data sources and identify needs for new tools and processes.

»Embrace ongoing improvement.

Evaluation isn’t a single event and it isn’t a linear process. Using a continuous improvement approach can help you spot challenges and make data-informed course corrections.

Set up periodic meetings throughout the evaluation process to review data, ask questions, interpret results and identify action steps. Regularly convening stakeholders to engage in collaborative data inquiry helps to quickly improve professional learning models and foster a culture of continuous improvement. It also helps reduce organizational silos and build a sense of shared ownership for success of professional learning.

Put It All Together

“This work has been powerful,” a superintendent in New York told us, as she shared how her team uses these strategies to develop professional learning grants. “We now begin every professional learning initiative by creating a logic model to ensure we have a clear, collective understanding of our outcomes and our pathway to achieve them. Collecting data about our professional learning activities is helping us continuously improve and make better decisions about resource allocation.”

NICOLE BRESLOW is co-leader of the Professional Learning and Development Research Alliance at the REL Northeast & Islands at Education Development Center in Waltham, Mass. GEORGIA BOCK is a researcher at REL Northeast & Islands.