14.9: Evaluating Professional Development and Supporting Transfer to Practice

Professional development should be evaluated by more than attendance records or certificates. Training hours may show that staff completed a requirement, but they do not show whether staff changed their practice or whether children’s experiences improved. Administrators need ways to determine whether professional learning is actually being used in daily work. Evaluation does not need to be overly complicated. The goal is to ask practical questions: Did staff learn what was intended? Are they applying it? What support do they still need? What evidence shows that the program is improving?

Moving Beyond Completion Records

Most programs track professional development hours because licensing, funding, or employment systems may require documentation. This is necessary, but it is only a starting point. A staff member may attend a training on positive guidance and still struggle to use effective guidance strategies during difficult classroom moments. Another staff member may complete a workshop on family communication but continue using vague or judgmental language when discussing concerns. In both cases, the training was completed, but transfer to practice did not fully occur. Completion records answer one question: Did the staff member attend? Program improvement requires a different question: What changed because of the learning?

Supporting Transfer to Practice

Transfer to practice means staff are able to apply what they learned in their actual work. This step is often where professional development succeeds or fails. A strategy that seems clear during training may feel much harder during a busy transition, a parent conference, or a conflict between children.

Programs can support transfer by planning follow-up before the training even happens. Staff should know what they are expected to try, when they will have time to practice, and how support will be provided. Follow-up may include observation, coaching, staff meeting discussion, peer sharing, or written reflection. A useful transfer plan might include three simple steps:

• identify one practice staff will try,
• provide time and support to use it, and
• follow up to discuss what worked and what needs adjustment.

This turns professional development into a cycle rather than a one-time event.

Using Observation and Feedback

Observation helps administrators see whether professional development is showing up in practice. If staff received training on active supervision, an administrator might observe playground positioning, scanning, counting, and staff movement. If the training focused on language development, observations might look for conversations, open-ended questions, vocabulary modeling, and wait time.

Feedback should be specific and connected to the professional development goal. General comments such as “good job” or “keep working on it” are less useful than feedback tied to observable practice. For example: “During center time, I noticed you asked three children to explain how they built their ramps. That extended their thinking and language.” Observation should be used to support improvement, not simply to catch errors. Staff are more likely to apply new learning when feedback is timely, concrete, and paired with support.

Staff Reflection and Self-Evaluation

Staff should be part of evaluating their own growth. Reflection helps staff notice what they tried, what changed, and where they still need support. This is especially important because some changes in practice are subtle and may not be visible in one short observation.

Reflection questions can be brief:

• What did you try?
• What felt different?
• How did children respond?
• What was difficult?
• What do you want to adjust next time?

These questions encourage staff to connect professional learning to real classroom experiences. They also help administrators understand whether staff need more training, coaching, materials, or time.

Looking at Program-Level Patterns

Professional development should also be evaluated at the program level. If only one teacher is using a new strategy, the issue may be individual follow-through. If most staff are struggling to implement it, the program may need to revise the training plan, provide clearer expectations, or offer more support. Program leaders can look for patterns in classroom observations, staff feedback, child assessment data, incident reports, family feedback, or curriculum documentation. For example, if a program provides training on reducing transition challenges, useful evidence might include calmer transitions, fewer behavior incidents, shorter wait times, and staff reports that routines feel more manageable. This kind of review helps administrators determine whether professional development is improving the program as a whole.

Avoiding “One and Done” Professional Development

Professional growth takes time. Staff usually need repeated opportunities to learn, practice, receive feedback, and refine their approach. A single training may introduce a concept, but it rarely creates deep or lasting change by itself. Programs should avoid treating a topic as finished simply because staff attended one workshop. Instead, important priorities should be revisited through staff meetings, coaching, observation, and planning conversations. Repetition is not necessarily redundant. When it is connected to practice, repetition helps build skill.

Example \(\PageIndex{1}\)

"We Counted the Hours, Not the Change"

A director was proud that every staff member had completed the required professional development hours for the year. The training log was organized, certificates were filed, and staff had attended sessions on curriculum planning, family communication, and behavior guidance. However, classroom observations showed that several program goals had not improved. Lesson plans still looked disconnected from child observations, family communication remained inconsistent, and teachers continued to rely on the same behavior strategies they had used before the training. The director realized that the program had been tracking participation, but not transfer to practice.

The following year, the program changed its approach. For each major professional development topic, staff identified one practice to try, supervisors observed for that practice, and staff discussed implementation during team meetings. The program still tracked hours, but it also began tracking whether professional learning was changing daily work. This example illustrates that professional development should be evaluated by its effect on practice, not only by whether staff attended.