Standards for Professional Learning
View the Standards at Learning Forward
Increasing the effectiveness of professional learning is the leverage point with the greatest potential for strengthening and refining the day-to-day performance of educators. The standards make explicit that the purpose of professional learning is for educators to develop the knowledge, skills, practices, and dispositions they need to help students perform at higher levels.
Professional learning that increases educator
effectiveness and results for all students:
- Occurs within LEARNING COMMUNITIES committed to continuous improvement, collective responsibility, and goal alignment.
- Requires skillful LEADERSHIP that develops capacity, advocates, and creates support systems for professional learning.
- Requires prioritizing, monitoring, and coordinating RESOURCES for educator learning.
- Uses a variety of sources and types of student, educator, and system DATA to plan, assess, and evaluate professional learning.
- Integrates into its LEARNING DESIGNS, theories, research, and models of human learning to achieve its intended outcomes.
- Applies research on change and sustains support for IMPLEMENTATION of professional learning for long-term change.
- Aligns its OUTCOMES with educator performance and student curriculum standards.
Select a standard below to view its elements:
Learning CommunitiesLeadershipResourcesDataLearning DesignsImplementationOutcomes
- Engage in continuous improvement
- Develop collective responsibility
- Create alignment and accountability
- Develop capacity for learning and leading
- Advocate for effective professional learning
- Create support systems and structures
- Prioritizing human, fiscal, material, technological, and time needs
- Monitoring how resources are used
- Coordinating resources
- Analyze, Student, Educator, and System Data
- Assess progress
- Evaluate impact of professional learning
- Apply Learning Theories, Research, and Models
- Select Learning Designs
- Promote active engagement & deep learning that inspires action.
- Applies research on change
- Sustains support for implementation
- Provides constructive feedback
- Meet performance standards
- Address student learning outcomes
- Build coherence through alignment
Learning Forward Kansas is an affiliate of Learning Forward and focuses on improving educator effectiveness and learning for ALL students.
By Vicki Bechard, Secretary LFKSPhoto Credit: Vicki BechardAs the snow piles up in Kansas – which s 
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