by Robert Coe, Philippa Cordingley, Steve Higgins, Toby Greany.DGT - Full report

Our recent review, ‘Developing Great Teaching[1], written for the Teacher Development Trust by colleagues from CUREE, UCL IoE and Durham has been widely reported as saying that traditional INSET days and a one-size-fits-all approach do not work. These headlines are right, but the full messages from the report are quite complex.

 

Are there some clear recommendations that teachers can use to help them make better choices about what kinds of CPD they do?

Yes, and they are in the report. It is not long (11 pages) or technical and every teacher should read it, especially if they have an interest in or responsibility for professional development. What we have tried to do here is provide a simple, focused guide to what CPD is most likely to be effective. It needs a lot of caveats, of course: simple can be too simple; often the research is not clear enough to support clear decisions and an element of ‘best guess’ is needed; we don’t really know which of these characteristics of CPD are most important, or how they interact. But, for what it’s worth, here is our 10-point checklist:

 

[1] Cordingley, P., Higgins, S., Greany, T., Buckler, N., Coles-Jordan, D., Crisp, B., Saunders, L., Coe, R. (2015) Developing Great Teaching: Lessons from the international reviews into effective professional development. Teacher Development Trust. tdtrust.orgabout/dgt/