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In Professional Learning, One Size Does Not Fit All

Why professional learning that teachers must scale to their own classrooms causes confusion, and why teachers need a learning practice of their own.

By Kristi Meeuwse

Diane MasonMay 31, 20179 min read

Teachers learning at different stations professional learning that is not one size fits all

Teacher microcredentials show promise for personalized learning, but the strongest evidence supports coaching, as research from 2017 to 2019 explains.

In 2017, Kristi Meeuwse and Diane Mason argued that early childhood teachers need professional learning matched to their grade level and experience, using coaching, microcredentials and technology. Their article appears below as published, followed by a section on what research since then says about teacher microcredentials and personalized learning.

Changes in How Students Learn Requires Changes in How Teachers Learn

Daily, teachers interact with students in a variety of ways to focus on learning outcomes, but not all teachers are well-equipped with the necessary skills to target specific student needs. For students to learn at higher levels, teachers must also learn at higher levels. In fact, teachers need a learning practice in addition to a teaching practice. Learning practices for teachers must include a focus on student learning, which requires ongoing support from colleagues and the principal. Changes in how students learn requires changes in how teachers learn. Yet, most professional learning opportunities consist of one-shot workshops designed to cover multiple grade levels, leaving busy teachers to scale the content that is provided.

Scaling Content

This scaling of content is most difficult for early childhood educators. Early childhood, as defined by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, or NAEYC, is the education of children up to age eight. In some districts, early childhood is considered preschool to grade two, and in others, it extends to grade three. Too often, these teachers are grouped together for professional development workshops and webinars in literacy. Grouping these teachers together is problematic, as preschool literacy activities are vastly different from those in second and third grade. In fact, best practices in literacy development for each early childhood grade level build systematically on one another.

Kindergarten students focus heavily on phonemic awareness and concepts of print. Students in second grade are building reading fluency skills and reading longer passages with greater text complexity. Due to the differing nature of literacy practices in these grade levels, combining them for professional development results in confusion and frustration. When teachers have to scale content to fit their teaching context, they are less likely to make these instructional changes. One size does not fit all. Teachers, like students, possess different levels of knowledge and understanding. In teaching, this means individuals vary in their abilities and expertise with implementing new and emerging instructional strategies. One way to broaden knowledge and expertise while building confidence in instructional approaches is through personalized learning.

Personalized Professional Learning

Research demonstrates teachers are more likely to make instructional changes when professional learning is ongoing, job embedded, and personalized to individual teacher needs. This personalization of professional learning should consider the teaching context, previous knowledge and instructional needs of each educator. The end goal is to build individual capacity and create lasting change in pedagogical practices. Some districts are utilizing instructional coaches to model best practices and work with individual teachers and grade level teams, as veteran teachers do not have the same professional learning needs as first year teachers. Personalizing professional learning with coaching and reflection provides teachers with the ability to see the impact on their students and practice new instructional skills in a safe environment.

Credentialing

In addition to coaches, a few school districts are incorporating microcredentials and online professional learning platforms that provide individual learning plans for teachers. Microcredentials, or digital badges, are performance-based assessments that allow teachers to showcase their growing skills. Each microcredential is focused in a particular area, has submission criteria, a research base, recommended resources and a scoring rubric. Microcredentials allow teachers to engage in self-paced, job-embedded professional learning that is connected to the daily skills teachers need.

First, the principal and teacher sit together to create a professional growth plan. The teacher then is able to work with the instructional coach, complete online microcredentials, work in an online professional learning platform and/or take courses to demonstrate the learning targets identified in the professional growth plan. With the assistance of an instructional coach and planned personalized professional learning experiences, teachers can hone in on specific teaching needs. For example, the instructional coach can offer suggestions or model ways to incorporate technology integration to meet varied student needs. A coach can also serve as a sounding board and expert to guide practical ways for improving instruction and integrating varied technology tools within curriculum.

Incorporating Technology

Personalizing professional learning must also include the incorporation of technology. In today’s digital world, our students are more connected than ever. Since anytime learning is both personal and pocketed, students require teachers who are able to integrate technology in meaningful ways to enhance deeper learning. Yet, many teachers are lacking the technological skills to effectively do so. Further, teachers also lack a clear understanding of the connection between teaching, technology and content. To affect change through the implementation of personalized learning through professional development with technology, it is important to consider the perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and self-efficacy of teachers involved in implementing technology in their classrooms. This is best achieved through instructional coaching and personalized professional learning incorporating technology. Engaging teachers in personalized professional learning is one way to better insure young students are exposed to current day instructional strategies aimed at building foundational skills for success.

As technology continues to daily affect our lives, it behooves educators to learn ways to effectively utilize technology tools to change the landscape of teaching and learning. Through a process of personalizing professional learning, educators can become more adept at shaping instructional strategies to better meet the varying needs of students. Furthermore, personalized professional experiences enable teachers to extend learning to improve their own “craft” of teaching. Combined with a supportive administrator and instructional coach, teachers also develop the necessary collaborative skills to affect overall change in practice deemed appropriate for developing well-equipped, academically renowned students prepared for what the future might hold.

Teacher microcredentials in 2026: what the evidence says and how schools use them

Teacher microcredentials are short, focused credentials that a teacher earns by showing evidence of a specific classroom skill. As Kristi Meeuwse and Diane Mason explain above, they offer one way to match professional learning to an individual teacher instead of giving every teacher the same workshop. This section looks at what microcredentials are, what the research can and cannot say about them, and what a school leader should weigh before adopting them.

What microcredentials are

Digital Promise, a nonprofit that has worked on microcredentials for educators since 2013, describes them as credentials that give educators competency-based, on-demand, personalized and shareable opportunities to demonstrate and be recognized for their professional learning. In a 2019 post, the organization reported 40 active issuing organizations and more than 400 published microcredentials. Digital Promise says it screens issuers for the research behind their work and that research is central to how credentials are developed and assessed. That fits the structure Meeuwse and Mason describe: a focus area, submission criteria, a research base and a scoring rubric.

The key difference from a workshop is that the teacher shows what happened in a classroom. A teacher might submit student work or a short video, along with a reflection, and a reviewer scores it against a rubric. The credential records a demonstrated skill rather than hours of attendance.

What the research says, and what it does not

The evidence on microcredentials themselves is thinner than the enthusiasm for them. The material Digital Promise publishes describes how credentials are built and grounded in research, but it does not report measured student results. Leaders should treat claims that microcredentials raise achievement as untested until a study with a comparison group says otherwise.

The wider research on teacher learning is more solid, and it supports the parts of microcredentials that Meeuwse and Mason emphasize. The Learning Policy Institute’s 2017 review of 35 studies by Linda Darling-Hammond, Maria Hyler and Madelyn Gardner found seven features shared by effective professional development: a focus on content, active learning, collaboration, models of effective practice, coaching and expert support, feedback and reflection, and sustained duration. A well-built microcredential can contain several of these. A poorly built one may be only a checklist that teachers complete to collect a badge.

Coaching is the part with stronger evidence

Meeuwse and Mason pair microcredentials with instructional coaching, and the research on coaching is stronger. In a 2018 meta-analysis in the Review of Educational Research, Matthew Kraft, David Blazar and Dylan Hogan combined results from 60 studies with causal designs. They found average effects of 0.49 standard deviations on teachers’ instruction and 0.18 standard deviations on student achievement. Much of the evidence came from literacy coaching for prekindergarten and elementary teachers, the group Meeuwse and Mason write about.

The same authors warn that results shrink when programs grow. Average effects from trials of larger programs were only a fraction of those from smaller programs. For a district, that means a coaching plan that worked in a pilot with a handful of teachers needs the same attention to quality when it reaches a hundred.

Questions to ask before adopting microcredentials

A principal or district leader weighing microcredentials can start with four questions. First, does the microcredential address a skill the teacher and principal have agreed is a priority in the growth plan, as Meeuwse and Mason describe? Second, does it require evidence from the classroom, or only a test or a reading? Third, who reviews the evidence, and are they trained to give useful feedback? Fourth, is there time in the teacher’s week to do the work, and a coach or colleague to talk it through?

Grade level matters especially for early childhood, as the original article stresses. A microcredential on phonemic awareness suits a kindergarten teacher, while a second-grade teacher working on fluency needs a different one. Choosing from a catalog by grade band, rather than assigning one credential to everyone, keeps the personalization the approach promises.

Finally, leaders should decide how microcredentials connect to recognition. If credentials lead to pay or advancement, teachers will take them seriously, but the review process has to be fair and consistent. If they carry no recognition, they may still work as a tool for teams that want to focus on a shared skill.