A strong professional development plan for teachers doesn’t begin with another survey or a one-size-fits-all workshop. It starts with what you’re seeing in classrooms.
Fall walkthroughs reveal patterns across grade levels and subjects, showing where teachers need support and which instructional practices deserve attention. Those findings give you a starting point for setting one to three measurable goals, grouping teachers by shared needs, and choosing learning activities tied to classroom practice.
Education Walkthrough helps leaders bring observations together, making it easier to spot trends across your entire school and plan support.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to turn walkthrough findings into a focused January professional development plan and review the evidence in February.
Why Fall Walkthrough Data Should Shape Your January Professional Development Plan
Fall walkthrough trends give you a much clearer starting point for January professional development than a self-assessment survey. Why? Because they show what’s happening across multiple classrooms, not just how one teacher feels about a particular skill.
A survey captures self-perception, but walkthroughs across grade bands and subjects can reveal patterns you might otherwise miss, such as questioning that stays at recall level in several upper-elementary classrooms.
This makes walkthrough data a useful early indicator of where teachers may need support, long before test scores arrive. It also gives you a starting point for planning without mixing professional growth with formal evaluation.
At Education Walkthrough, we see a professional development plan as a short, practical document that connects what you observed to teacher professional growth, with clear goals and a target review date. Yet many teachers don’t receive this kind of structured support.
According to OECD’s TALIS 2024 report, only 46 percent of teachers across OECD systems were offered a development or training plan. Using your own classroom walkthrough findings gives you a practical way to close that gap.
The Essential Fields to Include in Every Plan
A professional development plan needs more than a goal statement. It should give you a clear picture of who the plan supports, what they need to work on, and how you’ll track progress with a data-driven approach that adapts to teacher needs and instructional gaps. Start by naming the teacher or group, setting a review period, and recording baseline findings using data from multiple sources, drawing evidence from four categories to clarify student and teacher needs, not just walkthroughs. Then use data analysis to identify patterns and outline one to three professional development objectives connected to your teaching standards or school priorities and tied to specific desired outcomes.
The U.S. Department of Education’s planning tool and Learning Forward’s Standards for Professional Learning both emphasize this kind of structured approach. Start with what teachers need to develop, then connect that need to clear short- and long-term goals, a focused objective, and practical activities. These key elements include skill development and active learning opportunities, turning the plan into a usable roadmap rather than a checklist.
Aside from the objectives, make sure your plan includes:
- Learning Activities: What teachers will study, practice, or observe to support skill development through active learning opportunities.
- Classroom Application: How they’ll put what they’ve learned into practice with their students.
- Coaching or Collaboration Schedule: When a coach, colleague, or professional learning community (PLC) will check in.
- Success Indicators and Tracking Methods: How you’ll recognize progress and where you’ll look for it.
- Review Dates and Approvals: When you’ll revisit the plan, what support and resources are needed for execution, and who needs to sign off.
Plan formats and approval requirements can vary by state and district, so check your local guidelines before finalizing yours. Most importantly, connect the plan to the teacher feedback you already provide, so teachers have a clear next step for developing their skills. Once these details are in place, you can start deciding which teachers should work together based on their learning needs.
How to Group Teachers for More Effective Professional Development
To group teachers together, start with the instructional needs your walkthroughs revealed, then refine your groups by experience, grade band, and subject. Common priorities might include classroom management, differentiated instruction, or technology integration. Each calls for a different kind of learning, so asking every teacher to attend the same session is unlikely to give everyone the support they need.
Build Groups Around Shared Learning Needs
Grouping by need creates a useful link between individual professional goals and wider staff development. Professional learning communities can also bring together teachers with similar needs to exchange ideas and support each other’s growth. Teachers can build knowledge and strengthen teaching skills through small-group learning and coaching cycles. If you organize staff only by grade or subject, you may miss important differences. For example, two fourth-grade teachers could have very different goals.
Use four factors to shape your groups:
- Instructional Priority: The skill or practice each teacher wants to develop, such as differentiated instruction.
- Experience Level: Separate support for first- and second-year teachers from opportunities for experienced educators to refine their practice.
- Grade Band: Group teachers whose students are at similar stages, so examples and strategies are relevant.
- Subject: Bring together teachers in the same content area when the learning need is subject-specific.
Tailored learning opportunities by experience, subject, or grade level make professional learning more relevant. Custom learning experiences can also strengthen educators’ sense of belonging.
Give New Teachers and Interest Groups the Right Support
New teachers may need a more structured path, and grouping support by need helps teachers pursue professional goals within a shared structure. Only one in four novice teachers across OECD systems had an assigned mentor, according to OECD’s TALIS 2024 report. Rather than placing a first-year teacher in a general questioning session alone, pair the learning focus with a mentor or coach they can turn to as questions arise during the school week. That kind of support can also steady a teacher’s professional development journey and protect well-being as demands build during the year.
You can also offer optional interest groups alongside the core plan, with groups reflecting the knowledge or teaching skills teachers need to strengthen. For example, teachers interested in AI tools could explore technology integration using a framework such as UNESCO’s AI Competency Framework for Teachers. This gives interested staff room to explore without making the topic compulsory for everyone.
Finally, look for teachers who may need more frequent one-to-one coaching. Think ahead about giving feedback to resistant teachers, so additional support feels constructive, not unexpected.
Use Coaching and Peer Learning to Make Professional Development Stick
January professional development should continue after the workshop ends. Teachers need opportunities to try a strategy, receive feedback, reflect, and repeat the cycle of continuous improvement. Build that follow-through into coaching cycles, peer collaboration, and a February check of classroom practice tied to student outcomes and student success.
Turn a Workshop Into a Coaching Cycle
A one-off session can introduce a new approach, but teachers need support when they begin using it. The Education Endowment Foundation highlights goal setting, feedback, revisiting prior learning, practice, and implementation support as features of effective professional development.
Put those ideas into a coaching cycle. A coach observes the strategy in action, offers focused feedback, and helps the teacher decide what to adjust before trying it again through coaching conversations grounded in classroom evidence. The January session becomes a starting point for classroom practice, not a standalone event, and the cycle should also include reflection and regular evaluation to measure progress and assess whether the plan is working.
Use Peers to Keep the Learning Moving
Coaches cannot visit every classroom every week, so build peer learning into the time between visits. Teachers can use peer observations to see a colleague try the same strategy, then use part of a professional learning community (PLC) meeting to discuss what worked, strengthen collaboration around teaching practices, and decide what to adapt. Sustained PLC collaboration can improve student learning outcomes over time.
Keep the conversation specific and supportive. Positive teacher feedback examples can help colleagues describe what they noticed and offer useful suggestions. The Learning Policy Institute’s review of 35 rigorous studies points to the value of sustained, collaborative professional learning. Encourage teachers to jot down a brief reflection after each attempt so they can bring a question or takeaway to their next check-in.
Decide in January What You’ll Review in February
Before the month gets busy, agree on what progress should look like. You might revisit the same walkthrough look-for from fall, such as the types of questions teachers ask or how students take part in discussions. Compare what you see in February with the earlier pattern, then use the results to decide what support should continue. As part of data-driven instruction, PLCs can review that evidence together as teachers analyze data and identify next instructional moves to provide support through targeted interventions for struggling students.
Keep the schedule manageable. In TALIS 2024, 63 percent of teachers named lack of time as a barrier to professional development, up 25 percentage points from 2018, according to OECD. Use existing common planning periods for coaching and PLC discussions instead of adding meetings. Protected time gives teachers room to practice without making professional learning another demand on an already full week.
How to Turn Walkthrough Findings Into SMART Goals for Teachers
A professional development goal turns a broad instructional concern into a clear action. SMART goals make this easier by keeping each objective specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, and they should come from data insights, not just walkthrough impressions. For example, if fall walkthroughs showed few open-ended questions in grades three through five, “improve questioning” is too vague. A stronger objective would be: “By February 28, grades three through five teachers will plan and ask at least three open-ended questions per lesson,” using reliable baseline evidence so growth can be tracked fairly over time. It identifies who is working on what, how often, and by when. Before setting that goal, teachers should regularly analyze formative and summative assessment data to identify specific student learning needs and the content areas where students struggle, then use those findings to drive instruction through data-driven strategies.
Connect Each Goal to Your Instructional Framework
You can align the objective with a component of the Danielson Framework for Teaching, a Marzano element, a T-TESS dimension, or your district’s own rubric. The goal should describe an observable change in classroom practice and connect to a school improvement priority. Walkthrough apps by teaching frameworks show how different tools organize these frameworks. Iowa’s Department of Education places the objective at the center of its planning guidance, with standards providing the reference point.
Keep your list manageable. Ohio’s 2025 recommended template suggests three to five goals linked to standards. Choose objectives your staff can realistically work on this term, and define the instructional strategies staff will practice so progress can be tracked to student learning outcomes. Use assessment data to select those instructional approaches so they address the specific learning need the goal is meant to improve. When findings are shared supportively, transparent review routines can also strengthen school culture.
Here are examples across classrooms:
- Middle School Math: By February 15, students will explain a solution strategy aloud in at least two lessons each week.
- High school English: By February 28, teachers will use a structured discussion protocol in one lesson per week.
- Kindergarten to second grade: By February 20, teachers will lead small-group reading rotations three times a week.
Build a January Professional Development Session Teachers Can Use
A January professional development session needs more than a topic and a presentation. It should create data-driven professional learning opportunities tied to one of your goals, and that goal should specify the instructional or teaching strategies teachers will use, not just the timeline, so you can quickly adjust support to teacher needs. You need five basic pieces to make the time useful:
- An agenda connected to one of your professional development objectives and focused on evidence-based practices.
- An activity that gives teachers a chance to work with the strategy or skill and apply it to classroom instruction.
- A facilitator, such as an instructional coach, department lead, or outside presenter who understands the topic.
- Resources teachers can use during the session and when they return to their classrooms.
- A realistic schedule that gives everyone enough time to participate and improves instructional quality and, over time, student achievement.
Give Teachers Time to Learn and Practice
What do teachers want from professional learning right now? Above all, they want time to do it. In the U.S., 67 percent of teachers cited insufficient time and 59 percent cited schedule conflicts as barriers, according to the OECD’s TALIS 2024 country note.
You can better understand what your staff needs by asking a few professional development questions. Their responses can help you choose suitable activities, facilitators, and session formats. Favor practical learning over a straight lecture so teachers can take something back to their classrooms.
The format should also fit the group. Workshops and seminars work well when a larger staff needs an introduction to a strategy. A small group of experienced teachers refining discussion routines might benefit more from lesson study, where they can test new strategies before using them in class, while newer teachers could work through paired planning with a mentor or instructional coaches.
Finally, schedule sessions within existing common planning periods wherever possible. This makes it easier for teachers to participate without adding another after-school commitment.
A Teacher Professional Development Plan Template You Can Use in January
Use this template to connect one fall walkthrough finding to a January learning activity and a February progress check. The example follows the grades three to five questioning goal we’ve used, and it works best when the evidence includes assessment data alongside walkthrough findings. Replace it with a pattern from your classrooms and adjust the dates, groups, activities, and student data to fit your school.
| Field | What to Include | Example |
| Finding | Fall walkthrough pattern | Grades three to five questions stayed mostly at recall level |
| Objective | One SMART goal | Three open-ended questions per lesson by February 28 |
| Group | Teachers involved | Grades three to five teachers; novices paired with a mentor |
| Session | Agenda, activity, facilitator | 60 minutes: review the pattern, model question stems, revise lesson questions in pairs |
| Classroom practice | What teachers will try | Plan open-ended questions for two lessons a week over three weeks |
| Coaching follow-up | Who checks in and when | One coach visit in late January, with same-day feedback and a brief coaching conversation after the visit |
| Progress check | What you’ll look for | February walkthrough notes on question types, compared with fall, plus formative and summative checks used to adjust instruction and review intervention strategies |
| Review date | When you’ll revisit the goal | Last week of February, during common planning time |
Some teachers may prefer to document their learning independently. A professional development portfolio with lesson plans and reflections, or a short action research project testing one questioning strategy, can replace the group session. Keep the objective and progress check to keep the plan focused, and choose formats that support the learning process and student engagement, not just information delivery.
Use these fields with Danielson, Marzano, T-TESS, or a custom rubric. The framework may change the language of your objective, but the planning process stays consistent. Make the template work for your staff, not force every teacher into an identical plan. Strong professional development plans also make it easier to review results and decide what support comes next.
Turn Classroom Walkthroughs Into Better Teacher Development
A professional development plan built around classroom walkthroughs gives you a clearer way to support teachers than relying on the same training for everyone. When you connect instructional needs to focused learning, coaching, and regular follow-up, professional development becomes part of everyday classroom practice.
At Education Walkthrough, we’ve seen how consistent walkthrough practices can help leaders identify patterns across schools. In one Arkansas cooperative, math and English scores were reported at 10% to 12% above the state mean, according to our founder, Adam Russek-Sobol.
Education Walkthrough helps school leaders bring classroom observations together and identify instructional trends across grade bands and subjects. Use those insights to plan more focused professional development and support teacher growth. Explore how Education Walkthrough can help your team turn walkthrough findings into practical next steps.
Common Questions About Building a Teacher Professional Development Plan
Who should maintain a teacher professional development plan?
The instructional coach, designated school leader, or school administrator can coordinate the process, but teachers should help shape their own goals and record their progress. That coordinator should use available evidence to organize support for teachers. Agree on responsibilities at the start.
Should teachers receive a copy of their professional development plan?
Yes. Give each teacher access to the current plan so they can revisit goals, activities, and review dates. Shared access also helps everyone stay clear about agreed next steps.
How often should a professional development plan be updated?
Review it at the dates you set, and update it when classroom needs or school priorities change. Record adjustments and the reason for them, rather than quietly replacing the original goal.
What should you do when a teacher has already met a professional development goal?
Recognize the progress, discuss what helped, and decide whether to extend the skill or move to a new focus. Keep the next goal connected to classroom needs and the teacher’s growth.
Can a teacher professional development plan include student learning goals?
Yes, where appropriate. You can connect a teaching practice to a student learning target, but keep the teacher’s actions clear and within their influence. Review both measures carefully when useful.
