Poll finds student success is top of mind for professional learning leaders

Ensuring educator learning leads to better teaching and more student learning is top of mind for professional development leaders from across the U.S. and beyond, according to a recent poll conducted by Learning Forward. During our organization’s annual conference in December 2024, more than 500 learning leaders responded to an online survey about their work and its results.

These leaders are committed to professional learning that makes a difference in classrooms and in students’ lives, according to the responses. And they don’t want to just take it on faith that professional learning makes a difference – evaluation is one of their top areas of interest and need. These results suggest an encouraging trend, because research shows that high-quality educator learning aligned to the Standards for Professional Learning has a significant impact on student success.

Learning Forward Chief Learning Officer Paul Fleming shared poll results with the 2,500+ people gathered at the Learning Forward Annual Conference to hear the final keynote speaker on Wednesday, Dec. 10. Leaders who responded to the survey attended the conference to learn about the standards, hone their systems’ professional learning strategies, and ensure quality is front and center in their work.

Professional learning benefits: Instruction and student outcomes

The poll asked: What are the top two benefits of professional learning you have seen recently in your system or organization? The top three responses, according to 548 respondents, were:

1. Improvements in educators’ instructional practices (74.6%)
2. Improved student outcomes (47.8%)
3. More or better implementation of curriculum (28.8%)

These results suggest that professional learning leaders are focused where it counts: improving instruction to increase student learning and success. Student success is the ultimate link in the chain of professional learning impacts, as depicted in the figure below. It’s the reason professional learning leaders do what they do.

At the same time, student learning is the most difficult outcome to change and to measure. It is therefore unsurprising that more respondents are seeing or measuring changes in teaching than changes in student outcomes.

Nonetheless, it is heartening to see that almost half of respondents are seeing improved student outcomes. Furthermore, nearly a quarter (22.6%) of respondents reported seeing improved outcomes specifically for students from historically marginalized groups.

It’s important to note that these results are by self-report only, and we don’t know whether and how respondents are measuring the outcomes. It’s possible that student outcomes are higher than reported, lower than reported, or that respondents haven’t examined them.  What is clear from the results, however, is that a sizable number of respondents are focused where it counts: on students.

Areas of interest and need: Evaluation and leadership

To understand professional learning needs and priorities, the poll asked respondents to identify two topics on which they need more information and support. The top answer was measuring and evaluating professional learning, which was a priority for 37.8% of 545 respondents.

This is consistent with the results of the first question, because conducting evaluation and documenting impact are integrally linked. It is also consistent with trends we have seen in professional learning resource use throughout the past year. For example, our most popular issue of The Learning Professional journal in 2024 focused on evaluation, with

nearly half of the year’s most-read articles appearing in that issue.

The second most popular answer to the needs and priorities question was leadership development, selected by 36.5% of respondents. This may reflect the fact that many conference goers who took the poll work in leadership or supervisory roles in schools, districts, and states. It may also reflect growing research and an increasing recognition in professional learning, and in education in general, of the powerful connection between strong leadership, high quality teaching, and student outcomes.

Many other topics were popular with approximately a quarter of respondents, including coaching, differentiating instruction for students, support for new teachers, and curriculum-based professional learning.

How we plan to use the poll results

Learning Forward conducted this poll at our annual conference because the event is designed to be a lab-like experience conducive to information sharing and collaborative problem-solving among attendees, session facilitators, and subject-specific experts. The responses we received will continue to inform all aspects of our work to provide our members with actionable research-backed insights and best practices on effective professional learning that works. Our advocacy team will share the results of this poll with members of Congress who determine federal spending for Title II, Part A and with state leaders.

This poll was not a scientific survey. The convenience sample of participants does not allow us to extrapolate the findings to other educators, and the self-report nature of the data does not allow us to verify participants’ responses. But the data does provide a picture of where top professional learning leaders are focusing their efforts and resources. They’ve provided a resounding answer to the question, “Why do we need professional development?”: to improve students’ learning.