A Responsive Professional Learning System Learns from Teachers

Responsive Teaching Begins with Learning from Students

When we talk about ambitious teaching, we often emphasize the importance of being responsive to students. Responsive teachers listen carefully to what students are saying, notice what they are doing, and use that evidence to make instructional decisions in the moment and over time. Student thinking becomes the primary source of evidence for deciding what to do next.

If we believe that, shouldn’t the same be true for those of us who facilitate professional learning?

As coaches, instructional leaders, and teacher educators, we are in the business of teacher learning. Our instructional decisions should be informed not only by research and intended learning goals, but also by careful attention to how teachers are making sense of new ideas and how those ideas are beginning to show up in practice.

Recently, our team began asking ourselves a set of questions: What are we learning about the professional learning we’ve designed? Which ideas are resonating with teachers? What strengths are emerging across classrooms? Where might educators benefit from additional opportunities to deepen their understanding?

These questions would provide us with evidence that inform our decisions as we design professional learning.

Learning Walks as Formative Assessment for the System

Just as teachers use formative assessment to determine what students need next, coaches and instructional leaders can use evidence gathered through informal conversations with teachers, observations of collaborative planning, coaching interactions, and learning walks to inform next steps. 

One important place to see what teachers are internalizing from professional learning is learning walks. We’ve found learning walks to be useful to understand how the learning experiences we’ve designed are being taken up across classrooms. As we visit classrooms we’re asking, What are we learning about teachers’ current understandings? What patterns are emerging? How are teachers making sense of the ideas we’ve explored together? Where might our professional learning design need to evolve?

Viewed this way, learning walks become formative assessment for the system. They provide feedback on our work as facilitators and coaches, helping us understand how teachers are interpreting new ideas, adapting them to their own contexts, and where additional learning opportunities might be valuable. Rather than confirming whether teachers “got it,” learning walks help us determine what we should do next.

Looking for Learning, Not Compliance

Because ambitious teaching is complex, we should expect learning to unfold over a long period of time. Teachers are integrating new understandings, experimenting with unfamiliar practices, and making instructional decisions in dynamic classroom environments. Our role is to understand where teachers are on their journey well enough to provide meaningful support.

For example, we might see a teacher intentionally inviting more students into a mathematical discussion while still relying on the familiar Initiate-Respond-Evaluate (IRE) pattern. Rather than viewing this as something to correct, we can recognize it as evidence of learning in progress. Teachers are stretching toward a new vision of instruction while building from what they already know. That evidence helps us decide what experiences, examples, or opportunities for collaboration might best support the next stage of learning.

A Responsive Learning System

Just as responsive teaching begins with listening to students, responsive facilitation begins with listening to teachers and noticing how they are taking up ideas into their practice.

When we use what we learn to shape our next decisions as facilitators, professional learning becomes responsive rather than prescribed and developmental rather than evaluative. Learning walks become more than opportunities to observe classrooms—they become an essential source of evidence for improving the learning experiences we design.

Just as we want teachers to be responsive to students, we must also be responsive to teachers. By treating learning walks as formative assessment for the system, we position ourselves as learners alongside educators, continually refining our practice so teachers, and ultimately students, experience richer opportunities to learn.