Educators know that professional development is essential for growth, but finding time for meaningful learning during a busy school year can be challenging. This article shows you how to make the most of your staff meetings by integrating micro professional development—short, targeted learning sessions that add up to meaningful growth. Learn how to choose relevant topics, engage teachers in the process, and build a collaborative culture of continuous improvement through Micro PD Meetings.
Has there ever been a more publicized love-hate relationship than the one that exists between teachers and professional development? On the one hand, teachers are often lifelong learners who enjoy acquiring new knowledge. On the other hand, yearly state-mandated professional development requirements can be exhausting and may contribute to teacher burnout. These mandates are often tied to renewing a teaching license.
For example, when I taught in West Virginia, teachers had to complete 18 hours of professional development per year. Now I’m a principal in Indiana, where we use professional growth points (PGPs). To renew a five-year license for five additional years, a person needs 90 PGPs. There are numerous ways people can earn these points, including completing training at the school level. Principals can award PGPs. I usually award one point for every hour of professional development.
The key is to space out high-quality professional development over time and not to wait until the last minute. A new and exciting trend that can help you do this is micro professional development, or micro PD. These mini lessons for teachers fit nicely at the end of staff meetings and usually last anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. I let micro PD minutes accumulate into hours and then award the points at the end of each quarter. Here are some ideas you might try if you want to integrate micro PD into meetings effectively.
The topics you decide to focus on must be relevant and interesting to your staff members. When I think of micro PD topics, I try to imagine the ones that are on the cutting edge of the education field. Professional journals and education websites are great places to get ideas. Micro professional development sessions need not focus only on teaching strategies—methods of analyzing data or building classroom culture are also appropriate topics. I always encourage my staff members to look for new ways to incorporate culturally relevant teaching. Relevant topics can be recurring topics, too.
As do school-age students, teachers enjoy having a voice in what they are learning. I recommend polling teachers at the beginning and in the middle of the school year to hear their ideas. This helps with teacher buy-in and engagement during Micro PD Meetings and ensures the learning feels relevant to their day-to-day experience.
Micro professional development is all about focusing on and reinforcing several main points. It’s as if you are taking a full training and condensing it into a study guide, like Cliffs Notes. When you create a micro PD session, you need to be skilled at prioritizing information so that each minute feels intentional and impactful.
To keep micro professional development sessions genuine and impactful, use a variety of teaching strategies. Don’t simply pass out an excerpt from an article and have participants read and discuss it. Watch short videos, experiment with phone apps, role-play classroom scenarios, and so on. Look for ways to nudge your staff members out of their comfort zones and teach them skills that are immediately applicable to their roles.
At the beginning of the year, have all your teachers submit one or more topics {hyperlink to LP} on which they would be willing to lead a micro professional development session. Do not let them avoid taking their turn. All your teachers have strengths in the classroom that they can share with their fellow staff members. Letting teachers be involved in leading Micro PD Meetings is also a great way to build trust and promote teamwork.
Professional development sessions can last one or even two weeks. If you find yourself focused on a topic that is simply too big to condense into 15 minutes, consider serializing it. Just as Charles Dickens delivered his novels in installments, you can focus multiple consecutive micro PD trainings on one topic. This approach creates consistency and allows for deeper exploration without overwhelming teachers.
Think of micro PD versus regular PD as espresso versus regular coffee. Espresso has a stronger flavor and comes in a smaller size, but it contains the same amount of caffeine as regular coffee does. Planning a micro professional development session is about capitalizing on the main points of a training, not speeding through a full one. If these shorter trainings are delivered effectively, they will spark interest in teachers to learn more about the topics on their own. Teachers should not feel rushed during Micro PD Meetings.
We all know that students need to have some fun incorporated into their learning. Remember that adults need fun too! Look for creative ways to incorporate enjoyment into your micro professional development sessions. Whatever your topic is, ask yourself if there’s a way to infuse a little entertainment into the training. This might be challenging—for example, how do you make analyzing data fun? Hmm . . . what if grade-level teams had to describe the data as if they were a team of TV news anchors?
When done thoughtfully, micro professional development can transform your regular meetings into powerful opportunities for growth. By choosing relevant topics, involving teachers in planning, using engaging strategies, and keeping sessions brief and fun, you create a sustainable rhythm of continuous learning. Start small: try integrating one micro PD session into your next staff meeting and build from there. Over time, these small bursts of learning can have a lasting impact on teacher morale, instructional quality, and school culture.