Gerald Ajam

“Professional development changes practice”

Training changes practice when it continues into the classroom.

Status Position

Published September 2026

All the claims I’m unconvinced byImplementation

Usually said

“Professional development changes practice”

The shift

From: A training day

To: Training that follows teachers into the classroom

More precisely

Professional learning changes practice when it is sustained, specific to the teacher’s context and continued through practice, feedback and coaching.

In short

Teachers do need to be shown new practice, and structured training is how that happens at scale. But hearing about a practice and using it in a busy classroom are a long way apart. Training that changes practice keeps going after the session, in the teacher’s own room.

The argument

From the claim to a better one

  1. The strongest formulation

    Teachers cannot use what they have never been shown. Structured professional learning is the main route by which new practice reaches classrooms at scale.

  2. Why it is attractive

    It is schedulable, countable and fundable. Attendance and satisfaction are easy to report, and a training day feels like action.

  3. Where it holds

    It holds when professional learning is sustained, tied to the teacher’s own subject and learners, and followed by practice, feedback and coaching in the classroom.

    Where it breaks

    It breaks when it is a one-off session measured by attendance. Knowing about a practice and doing it in a busy room are different, and the second is where most programmes stop.

  4. What evidence matters

    Timperley et al. (2007) on teacher professional learning, and Kennedy (2016) on which programme features change teaching. Kraft, Blazar and Hogan (2018) find coaching effective and harder to sustain at scale, and Guskey (2002) argues beliefs tend to change after teachers see practice work, not before. What matters is observed change in practice and in learning, not attendance.

  5. So, more precisely

    Professional learning changes practice when it is sustained, specific to the teacher’s context and continued through practice, feedback and coaching.

Reading it

The precise version, word by word

Professional learning changes practice when it is sustained1, specific to the teacher’s context2 and continued through practice, feedback and coaching3.

  1. Sustained

    Spread over weeks or months, with repeated contact. One day is enough to hear about something and rarely enough to change a habit.

  2. Specific to the teacher’s context

    Tied to their subject, their learners and the problems they actually face.

  3. Practice, feedback and coaching

    Trying the new approach, being observed or reviewing evidence of it, and getting specific advice for the next attempt.

What it changes in practice

  • Budget for follow-up in classrooms as well as for the session itself.
  • Measure a programme by observed change in teaching and learning. Attendance and satisfaction only show reach.
  • Expect beliefs to shift after teachers see a practice work, and plan for early wins.

A case, in general terms

Two schools send staff to the same workshop on questioning. One stops there. The other pairs teachers up for six weeks, each observing the other twice and meeting to discuss what happened. A term later, lessons in the second school look different. The workshop was identical. The follow-up was the programme.

Singapore