Resources for Practitioners
Looking to access High-Quality Professional Development for your school? Visit our Concierge Desk to let us help you find what might be right for your school.
High-Quality Professional Development: The Vehicle for Excellence in Jewish Day Schools
Drawing on insights from Simon Sinek, Brené Brown, and Atul Gawande, DEEP Consortium Concierge consultants Sarah Rubinson Levy and Tal Gale make the case that high-quality professional development isn’t a calendar event — it’s the foundation of school excellence. When schools invest in shared clarity, mission alignment, and a growth mindset, every student, educator, and family feels the difference.
High-Quality Professional Development: The Vehicle for Excellence in Jewish Day Schools, S. Levy, T. Gale
What is High Quality Professional Development?
Explore these key articles and resources for an in-depth understanding of High Quality Professional Development:
- Effective Teacher Professional Development, Research Brief L. Darling-Hammond, 2017, The best summary of the research on the characteristics that make for high-quality professional development
- Building Better PL: How to Strengthen Teacher Learning H. Hill and J. Papay, 2022
A deeper dive into the characteristics that make for effective professional development/professional learning. - Raising Student Achievement Through Professional Development 2021
A concise summary describing how the most powerful way to raise student achievement is through professional learning. - Factors affecting the impact of professional development programs on teachers knowledge, practice, student outcomes & efficacy L. Ingvarson, 2005
Extensive evidence from Australia on how to organize professional development to maximize its impact on raising student achievement. - Five Professional Learning Transformations for a Post-Covid World D. Reeves, 2021
One of the leading education thinkers weighs in with how to make PD most effective. - Creating Opportunities for All Teachers to Grow (Video) Teacher collaboration as a way to strengthen teaching and improve student outcomes.
Measuring the Impact of Professional Development
Measuring the impact of your chosen HQPD program is vital to optimizing its impact. This allows educators to become focused on what they’re learning and how they’re strengthening their practice. A few resources on how to do this:
- Evaluating Professional Learning: A Tool for Schools and Districts, N. Breslow and G. Bock, 2020, A toolkit for educators on the ins and outs of measuring the impact of professional development.
- Assessing the Impact of Professional Development, A quick primer from DEEP on the steps needed to ensure sound implementation of a PD evaluation protocol.
- Menu of Data Sources and Their Uses, DEEP’s resource describing some of the key sources to use to measure professional development
- Seven Reasons to Evaluate Professional Development, J. Killion, 2024, Explains how assessing quality and impact are key to making PD effective.
Instructional Resources
The following websites offer teachers invaluable knowledge and insight into strengthening teaching practice:
- The Power of Making Thinking Visible Series of YouTube videos on how to stimulate students to higher-order thinking
- Teachers Pay Teachers Resources developed by teachers for teachers
- Edutopia Resources for: project-based learning, social-emotional learning, teacher collaboration and much more.
- Research for Better Teaching Products and publications that aim to build teaching and leading skills.