Personalizing Professional Development for Teachers

Personalized professional development (PPD) takes the notion of individualized instruction for students and applies it to teachers. An assistant principal from a California school stated, “We all have different strengths and areas of potential growth” (Ullman, 2015, p. 19). PPD for teachers includes many facets, such as developing their skills to use multiple methods of teaching for each child’s strengths and challenges, but also developing teachers’ own professional knowledge and skills based on their own strengths and weaknesses.

The concept of professional development is a long, time-honored tradition. There are few jobs or professions today that do not need to update skills and/or knowledge. Whether you are a car mechanic, dentist, secretary, or statistician, new technologies and procedures are required to stay current.