More Than Setting a Goal: Turning Professional Growth Plans into Professional Learning

Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud · Aug 20, 2026 · 16m

A meeting to establish a teacher’s professional growth plan goal can either be a perfunctory activity to be checked of the “to do list” or the start of a year-long do --- reflect --- apply cycle that generates professional learning. Ask these questions at the end of the planning meeting:

Does the teacher own the goal?

Is there something they're curious about?

Have they identified something they want to learn rather than simply something they want to accomplish?

Do they know what evidence they'll examine?

Are they leaving the conversation thinking more deeply than when they entered it?…