What if the professional learning that makes the biggest difference doesn’t begin with a new resource or a full day away from the classroom? What if it begins with something smaller: a piece of student work, a question from a teacher, or a colleague sharing an idea that works?

Over time, I’ve learned that meaningful professional learning is less about how much we can fit into a session and more about what educators can immediately take back to their students. This week, I’m excited to share four ideas that continue to shape how I think about learning with and from educators. They come from my own experience and I’m always eager to learn from the ways others approach this work. Supporting meaningful professional learning is an important responsibility in my role as a district leader.

Here are four practices I have been returning to when I want professional learning to feel purposeful, responsive, and useful to educators right away.

1. Make It Small Enough to Use Tomorrow

The demands of teaching are significant. Teachers are planning, preparing, responding to individual learners, communicating with families, and keeping pace with a constantly moving curriculum. It can be difficult to leave the classroom and feel confident that students are getting the support they need and deserve.

That’s one reason I value micro-PD: short, focused professional learning that gives teachers time to take in an idea, think it through, and begin applying it right away. Time is one of our most valuable resources, and there never seems to be enough of it. It has also become harder to find substitute coverage that allows teachers to connect and collaborate.

I have noticed that even in a 90-minute session, we can make the learning purposeful: Make your agenda interactive by linking the resources they will need to access to introduce the purpose and rationale, model what the practice looks and sounds like, and give teachers time to try it and explore the resources you are sharing.

During a recent session, one teacher thanked me for keeping the learning moving. She also shared that she was surprised by how useful the instructional approaches were, even though my expertise was outside her content area. That stayed with me. Content knowledge matters, but a strong understanding of effective instruction can travel across subject areas. It helps us recognize practices that support student learning and gives us useful questions to explore together.

I want professional learning to respect the realities teachers face. A focused session can give educators something useful to try tomorrow and a reason to keep building on it.

In The Leader Inside, I wrote, “You don’t have to search for the big things to see good things happen. The small things matter, too.” I see that in professional learning, too. Small, practical steps can create meaningful change over time.

2. Let Student Work Set the Direction

Student work is one of our clearest guides to what students understand and what they need next. When educators have time to look closely at how students are learning, they can notice patterns, name what is working, and decide what to refine.

I’ve facilitated gallery walks with teachers and administrators where we pause over student work and ask: What do you notice? What do you wonder? What might this tell us about teaching and learning?

In one example, we noticed that students were developing strong claims and selecting evidence to support them, but their explanations of the reasoning behind that evidence were not yet as developed. That gave teachers a useful next step: plan lessons that make strong reasoning visible. Students could study models, use a checklist or rubric to analyze examples, and then apply what they noticed in their own writing.

When we put student work at the center of professional learning, the conversation becomes specific. We are not simply talking about what we hope students can do. We are looking at what they are doing now and deciding how to help them grow.

3. Use Teacher Feedback to Shape What Comes Next

At the end of a micro-session, I often ask teachers to complete a brief Google Form:

• What did you learn today?
• What is one thing you are still wondering?
• How can I support you?

I take those reflections seriously. They help guide my classroom walkthroughs and shape the next professional learning session. They also help me see whether the learning is connecting to teachers’ questions and day-to-day work.

I analyze the responses for themes and patterns, sometimes using an AI tools to help organize the feedback. That has saved me time and opened up more space to follow up with teachers and plan support.

For me, asking for feedback only matters if I use it. When teachers share what they need next, they are helping shape the learning and showing me where I can be more useful.

4. Make Room for Teachers to Teach One Another

Expertise lives all around us in our schools. Are we creating space for it to be shared? One of my favorite parts of my role is walking into classrooms, seeing the thought and care teachers bring to their work, and helping those ideas travel to other educators.

I remember leaders noticing something I was doing in my classroom and asking whether they could share it with another teacher. I could feel my face light up. Having someone recognize what I was bringing to my students meant more than that person could know.

I try to offer that same kind of recognition to the educators I serve. When I see a practice that could benefit others, I ask the teacher whether they would be willing to share it with our school community or at a conference. Recently, I invited a teacher to present some of her ideas at an education conference. I could see her whole face light up and jumped at the opportunity to submit a proposal that was accepted!

At a recent department meeting, two teachers shared how they were using technology to amplify student learning. One described using Google Classroom to help students organize assignments and communicate. Another shared an Apple tool for monitoring student learning. Their presentations sparked a lively conversation, and the learning grew well beyond the examples they had prepared.

In The Leader Inside, I wrote, “Leadership is not a title, but an opportunity to recognize the greatness that lives inside others.” Making space for teachers to share their expertise is one way we can recognize that greatness and help students benefit from it.

Moving Forward

I began by wondering whether the most meaningful professional learning might start with something small: a question, a piece of student work, or an idea shared by a colleague. I keep coming back to that thought. When we notice what is happening, listen to what teachers need, and make room for people to learn from one another, small moments can become the beginning of something larger.

As I wrote in The Leader Inside, “It’s the small wins that add up to the big things.” I see those wins every time an idea moves from one classroom to another and helps a teacher, a student, a leader grow.