The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) was engaged by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to conduct a research study on professional development for teachers to help identify needs and opportunities for improvement.
To inform this research, between January and March 2014, BCG engaged more than 1,300 stakeholders—including teachers, professional development leaders in district and state education agencies, principals, professional development providers, and thought leaders—through a combination of interviews and surveys.
Subsequent research included a survey of 1,600 additional teachers. BCG also analyzed existing reports and market data. Interviews, surveys, and research focused on a few major topics:
- Current state professional development participation, needs, and satisfaction
- Professional development decision-making and system-level barriers and enablers
- Professional development market size and supplier landscape (key providers, products, and services offered)
- Professional development needs in the future and emerging offerings
- Areas and causes of supply and demand mismatches
Findings include the following:
- Few teachers (29 percent) are highly satisfied with current professional development offerings.
- Few teachers (34 percent) think professional development has improved.
- Large majorities of teachers do not believe that professional development is helping them prepare for the changing nature of their jobs, including using technology and digital learning tools, analyzing student data to differentiate instruction, and implementing the Common Core State Standards and other standards.
- Professional development formats strongly supported by district leadership and principals, such as professional learning communities and coaching, are currently not meeting teachers’ needs.
- Principals largely share teachers’ concerns about the efficacy of professional learning.
At the same time, teachers and administrators largely agree on what good professional learning looks like. That consensus, coupled with teachers’ increasing use of self-guided online resources and their desire to work together to focus on planning, designing, and delivering instruction, provide directions for the future.
For the report, see: http://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/learning/teacher_views_on_pd/
