Last fall, I sat in the back of a school library during a “professional development day” that looked, on paper, like a success. The agenda was full. The slides were polished. There were colored markers on every table and a “parking lot” chart at the front of the room. People were even smiling.
And yet, during the break, a veteran teacher leaned toward me and whispered, “I know this is important. I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do differently on Monday.”
That question—what am I supposed to do differently on Monday?—is the one we too often fail to answer.
Somewhere along the way, PD became something we attend instead of something we practice. We began to treat adult learning like an event rather than a craft. We call it “professional development,” but too much of what we offer isn’t particularly professional. It’s not designed with the rigor we would expect in any other field where performance matters.
To put the “professional” back in PD, leaders don’t need a new initiative. They need to design with integrity: clear outcomes, adult learning principles, and transfer to practice that’s built in from the start.
Professional PD Starts with an Outcome
Professional learning should begin with a learner outcome—a clear statement of what participants will know, be able to do, or be more likely to do as a result of the learning experience. For example, “We’re doing formative assessment” is a topic. A learner outcome sounds like: “By the end of today, teachers will be able to design two checks for understanding aligned to tomorrow’s learning target, anticipate likely misconceptions, and decide what they’ll do with the results.” Or, instead of “We’re doing trauma-informed practices,” an outcome might be: “Teachers will be able to use one specific de-escalation script and one regulation routine, and identify when each is most appropriate.” This sounds obvious. It’s also the single most common missing ingredient.
When the outcome is fuzzy, everything else wobbles. The facilitator tries to cover too much. Participants can’t tell what’s a priority. Leaders leave thinking, That was a great day, because people were engaged and the session ran smoothly, but there isn’t clarity on what will change in classrooms.
Research on effective PD is remarkably consistent here: Strong professional learning is focused and coherent. It doesn’t feel like a random pile of activities; it aligns to a specific instructional aim and to educators’ context (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Desimone, 2009).
Professional PD Honors Adults as Adults
Even with a clear outcome, PD can still fail if it treats educators like passive recipients. Adults are not empty vessels; they arrive with expertise, skepticism, fatigue, identity, and a history of being “done to.” They also arrive with lived experience, which is the richest curriculum in the room.
When we design PD that ignores educators’ experience, we create compliance, not learning. When we design PD that honors adult learners, we cultivate agency.
In practice, this looks like starting with educators’ reality: What are they trying to solve? What have they already tried? What are they holding emotionally? Those aren’t “soft” questions; they’re data. Without them, facilitators often misdiagnose the problem and prescribe the wrong solution.
It also looks like building in choice and relevance. Adults are more likely to engage when they have a sense of control and can see the immediate value of what they’re learning—principles that show up consistently in adult learning theory (Knowles, 1980). Professional PD doesn’t rely on charisma to “keep people engaged.” It engineers engagement through meaningful tasks, cognitive challenge, and respect.
And professional PD makes it safe to try. We expect teachers to take risks with students, but we often ask them to learn in environments where risk feels dangerous—where the unspoken norm is to always look competent. Learning requires vulnerability; vulnerability requires psychological safety. Leaders can’t mandate psychological safety, but they can design for it with norms that protect dignity, structures that invite honest reflection, and facilitation that treats uncertainty as a normal part of growth.
Professional PD Includes Transfer by Design
Professional learning isn’t complete when participants agree. It’s complete when they implement, reflect, adjust, and keep going. Transfer to practice must be part of the design, not an optional add-on.
Professional PD bakes in transfer in three ways:
1. Practice in the room. If the outcome is, “Use a new discussion protocol,” then teachers should rehearse it—not just hear about it. If the outcome is, “Design checks for understanding,” then educators should draft them, get feedback, and refine them.
2. A follow-through loop. The most powerful PD isn’t a standalone workshop—it’s part of a learning cycle: try, reflect, get feedback, and try again (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017). This can happen through coaching, PLC structures, peer observation, or brief implementation huddles.
3. Attention to beliefs and experience. Change isn’t only technical. Teachers’ beliefs and attitudes often shift after they see new practices succeed with students—not before. That’s why transfer structures matter so much: They create conditions for success, and success changes minds (Guskey, 2002).
If we want educators to grow, we have to offer learning experiences worthy of professionals: clear outcomes, adult-centered design, and built-in transfer. If your PD can’t answer that teacher’s question—What am I supposed to do differently on Monday?—then it’s not professional development yet.
