Realizing the Promise of Professional Learning for Teaching, Equity, and Change

Abstract

Recent research shows that professional learning is essential "equity infrastructure," the key to engaging front-line educators in the action-oriented partnerships needed to implement equity-focused practices with quality and at scale. The new, 2023 report examines professional learning at community colleges and Minority Serving Institutions, which together serve the bulk of higher education's poverty-affected and racially minoritized students. This sector has been largely overlooked in research on professional learning. Based on data from nearly 100 institutions, the report finds that interest in professional learning is particularly high in this sector. But this interest has not been matched by systemic investment nor a consistent set of high-impact institutional practices. While exemplary MSIs and community colleges deploy research-based practices shown to effectively engage educators, systemic gaps in staffing and funding for professional learning undercut equity initiatives at most campuses in this sector. To address this problem, the report spotlights concrete steps to be taken by professional learning coordinators, academic leaders, and external partners such as funders, systems leaders and national higher education reform organizations.