Planning Professional Learning

Co-produced by Education Scotland, the General Teaching Council for Scotland, local authorities, universities, professional associations and teachers in 2018, the national model of professional learning in Scotland seeks to build a system-shared understanding of what makes professional learning effective.

Adults move through different levels of learning, depth of understanding, and professional growth over time. This highlights the complexity of adult learning, drawing attention to how professional learning can range from surface-level engagement to more transformative changes in individual and organisational practice, beliefs, and identity. This is known as Transformative Learning Theory.

As a designer and facilitator of professional learning it is essential to consider from the outset the intended level of learning, the role of the learner and desired impact on the individual as this will greatly influence the facilitation of the learning and how it is evaluated.

When planning professional learning it is useful to have a tool to help structure thinking. There are several different tools to choose from and it might be the case that combining elements of several tools to create a bespoke approach is the best way to meet the learning needs.

The Education Scotland Planning Tool has been informed by the work of Bernice McCarthy (1980) and is a simple, logical method of mapping out the learning design. The link above has some worked examples of using this model.

Facilitating Professional Learning

A crucial  and sometimes overlooked part of effective facilitation is the style of the facilitator. The individual’s behaviour, warmth, self and social awareness. Highlighting that professional learning may have excellent facilitation tools and strategies but ‘how’ the facilitator delivers and adapts these is a tool in of itself and can make all the difference to maximise the impact of the professional learning.

Daniel Goleman (2004) identified a set of emotional and social intelligence competencies that are important in facilitator style development.

Building on Goleman’s theory above, one of the first steps in facilitating impactful professional learning is to create a space that is characterised by a sense of community and psychological safety.

This productive learning environment can be practically achieved through a process of contracting between the learners and the facilitators. This may be through co-creating group protocols together or agreeing to pre-determined conditions.

There are a wealth of facilitation strategies and tools available. It is easy to feel overwhelmed or to stick with well-known strategies. When choosing a facilitation strategy it is important to ask these filtering questions:

1. How does this tool/strategy align with the purpose of the learning? Does it support the learners to achieve the learning objective?

2. Does this tool/strategy work in context? Is it suitable for the group you are working with in terms of the group size and needs? Will it fit in with the timings of your session? Remember the learning and learners should drive the choice of the tool and not the other way around.

A list of facilitation strategy toolkits and digital platforms to support facilitation are provided.

Evaluating Professional Learning

The evaluation of professional learning and the planning of professional learning go hand-in-hand. The evaluation needs to be actively planned and prepared for at the inception of the professional learning. This is especially true if the need is to evaluate at a deeper level as this is more complex and time consuming.

There are several models for evaluating the impact of professional learning. Two popular ones are Kirkpatrick (2016) and Guskey (2002). Incorporating different aspects of these models provides a robust structure for evaluating professional learning, ensuring that both immediate and long-term outcomes are effectively measured and used for continuous improvement.

Inclusivity and Accessibility

An important responsibility of a facilitator is to support all learners to feel as welcome and supported as reasonably possible. Facilitators should recognise the diverse backgrounds, experiences, needs and perspectives of participants and create safe opportunities for everyone to contribute meaningfully. Acknowledging and validating learners’ lived experiences, different cultural and social identities will enhance their sense of worth and belonging in the learning space.

There are many practical ways to ensure inclusivity and accessibility within professional learning and these sections, respectively linked, should be read in full.

One of these practical strategies is to use inclusive language as a facilitator. To support this working definitions of terminology around race, sexual orientation, sex and gender, and disability can be found in the appendices.