Realizing the promise of professional learning for teaching, equity, and change

In 2023, Achieving the Dream published Teaching, Learning, Equity and Change: Realizing the Promise of Professional Learning, a research-based report produced in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere (ELE) and the Online Learning Consortium (OLC).

The report examines professional learning at nearly 100 minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and community colleges. Together with external partners, ATD’s Bret Eynon, Jon Iuzzini, and H. Ray Keith outlined strategic recommendations that can help equity-focused institutions harness the power and potential of professional learning to benefit their students and communities.

These recommendations recently reached a wider audience when the report’s findings were published in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning in January 2024. The authors examined the data uncovered in their research, highlighted key findings, and summarized the actions that campus leaders and partners can take to activate change at their institutions.

Key Takeaways

Professional learning is essential “equity infrastructure.”

High-impact professional learning is key to engaging and empowering educators to implement equity-focused practices with quality and at scale.

Community colleges and MSIs show high interest in professional learning.

This interest, however, has not been matched by investment or implementation of best practices.

Gaps in resources and funding undercut equity initiatives.

One study found that broad-access public colleges serving economically and racially marginalized students receive one-third of the funding per student compared to predominantly white institutions with selective admissions. This gap undercuts professional learning’s benefits for faculty and students.

Effective change requires institutional transformation.

While one-and-done workshops demonstrate limited impact, exemplary centers for teaching and learning have shifted to more effective practices, such as sustained professional learning programs and systemic institutional support structures.