Walking the talk: supporting teachers’ growth with differentiated professional learning

This paper details how a seven-month reading-focused, professional development initiative centered on the assessment-to-instruction cycle supported teachers’ growth by building capacity for change through collaborative, small-group sessions, while concurrently providing differentiated professional learning through individualized classroom-based coaching. Analysis of participants’ experiences revealed the importance of differentiated learning opportunities in supporting teachers’ abilities to modify their instructional practices in response to their students’ identified needs. Requisite to supporting teachers’ needs and interests was differentiating the content, process, and expected outcomes of the professional development initiative. Implications include the use of students’ assessment results as a catalyst for teacher change, collaborative small-group sessions for the construction of new knowledge, and proximal goal-setting and individualized coaching to provide the differentiated professional development experiences that teachers may require to implement classroom-based instructional changes.