Professional Development should help me develop.
Can I really put what I learn into practice?
Let’s be real: most teachers hate professional development.
And I get it. Too often, it feels disconnected, repetitive, or worse—like someone’s checking a compliance box. Teachers walk in thinking, “There’s nothing this 18-year-old-looking-new-teacher can teach me,” or, “Here we go again… another PowerPoint, another acronym, another ‘strategy’ that doesn’t fit my reality.”
But here’s the thing: we do have a lot to learn. Especially in education—where everything is shifting and changing by the hour.
Because kids are changing by the hour.
We’re not just teaching content. We’re competing with devices, dopamine hits, and a digital world that moves faster than we can plan. Students today live in 10-second emotional cycles. They go from laughing to crying to feeling empowered to laughing again in the time it takes to scroll from one TikTok to the next. And if that’s their emotional pace, what makes us think that 45 uninterrupted minutes on the mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell—or a lecture on the War of 1812—is going to hold them?
If we want students to learn differently, we have to teach differently.
And that starts with us learning differently too.
Professional development shouldn’t feel like punishment. It should feel like possibility. It should respect our experience while pushing our practice. It should be designed for real classrooms, not ideal ones. It should answer the question, "How will this help my students tomorrow morning?"
Because we don’t need fluff. We need fuel.
What Does Good Professional Development Actually Look Like?
Good PD should be engaging.
It should reflect what we expect to see in classrooms.
It should be realistic—not idealistic.
It should be differentiated for teachers the way we ask teachers to differentiate for students.
Sounds simple, right?
But what do we do when we’re standing in front of a room full of teachers who just… don’t want to be there?
Let me tell you a story.
I was once leading a summer session for a group of teachers about a new district initiative. The district was moving toward structured academic conversations and the "7 Steps to Teaching Vocabulary" (don’t worry—we’ll talk about those in a future post). I had prepped hard. I knew the content. I believed in it. I also believed that this could be a game-changer for student engagement.
Then came that teacher.
High school math. Arms crossed. Eyes skeptical.
He walked up to me before the session even began, lifted my badge with the tip of his pen—the pen!—and asked, “Who are you?”
I’d been in the district for three years. But I introduced myself again anyway: name, role, district, the usual. He nodded slowly and said, “This training is doing nothing for me. It doesn’t apply to my subject. I teach math.”
And then, without hesitation, he asked,
“Can you just finish early? I have work to do.”
Yup. That happened.
And here’s the thing—I get it.
Teachers are exhausted. They’re over-scheduled. They’re asked to do more with less, and told to implement things that often feel disconnected from their content area or reality. PD has been done to them, not with them.
But that doesn’t mean we get to stop trying.
So… What Does Good PD Actually Look Like?
✅ It’s relevant. Show me how this helps me tomorrow, not someday.
✅ It’s respectful. Of my time, my expertise, my subject.
✅ It’s modeling what we preach. If we want collaborative classrooms, we need collaborative PD. If we want engagement, we need to be engaging.
✅ It’s differentiated. Math teachers aren’t ELA teachers. High school isn’t second grade. PD should reflect that.
✅ It’s active. No more sit-and-get. Give me something to do, discuss, challenge, try.
✅ It’s real. Talk to me about the barriers. Don’t pretend this will be easy. Help me figure out how to make it possible.
I don’t blame that teacher for feeling the way he did.
But I do wonder what would’ve happened if he had stayed curious.
I wonder what he might’ve seen if he had given the work a chance.
I wonder what his students could have gained.
Professional development can’t just be professional compliance.
It has to be an invitation—to grow, to adapt, to lead, to do better for kids.
And it’s on us—the ones designing it—to make that invitation worth accepting.
So let me leave you with this:
What’s the best—or worst—PD session you’ve ever had?
What made it unforgettable (in a good or bad way)?
What would you change if you were the one leading it?
I’d love to hear your stories. Drop them in the comments or share them with a colleague.
Let’s keep the conversation honest, real, and focused on growth.
Because if we expect our students to keep learning, we have to keep learning too.
– FF