As a teacher, you’re constantly learning, and it’s often in the same moments you’re helping students learn. That’s why meaningful professional development isn’t just a requirement in education, it’s a powerful way to help you stay energized in your practice and feel confident navigating everything today’s classrooms ask of you.
While continuous professional learning is important for student success, it must be approached with intention, strategy, and a deep awareness of educators' strengths and needs. When done right, professional development can honor your expertise and give you space to collaborate with colleagues who understand your challenges. Just as your instruction isn’t one-size-fits-all for students, professional development shouldn’t be either. PD should be purposeful, flexible, and designed to help you try new ideas and support better outcomes for all learners.
Understanding the importance of professional development in education means recognizing that the best learning is active. When you have opportunities to practice new strategies, receive ongoing coaching, and get actionable feedback, you’re more likely to take your learnings back to the classroom.
Professional Development (PD) Topics for Teachers
The most effective professional development topics for teachers in today’s educational landscape are aligned with the evolving needs of students and schools. Here are a few topics to try in this year:
1. AI-enhanced teaching and lesson planning
As artificial intelligence becomes more present in classrooms, purposeful and ethical use of AI tools has quickly emerged as one of the most talked‑about professional development topics this year. Teachers are increasingly asking how to use AI to enhance their instructional decision-making. High-quality PD on AI in education focuses on:
Integrating AI into lesson planning and differentiation
Teachers learn how to use AI tools to generate lesson ideas, create scaffolded materials, adjust text complexity, and design differentiated tasks, but always using professional judgment to adapt outputs to their students’ needs.
Understanding ethical and privacy considerations
As AI adoption grows, professional development helps teachers navigate student data privacy, responsible use, and classroom‑appropriate guidelines. Teachers learn what information can be shared with AI tools and how to model digital citizenship for students.
Creating space for ongoing coaching and experimentation
With the new AI-powered tools on Ed, HMH’s learning platform, teachers benefit from guided support as they learn, try, and refine new practices.
2. Teacher leadership and professional collaboration
Teacher leadership and professional collaboration are powerful professional development topics because they give opportunities to share ideas and learn alongside colleagues. Here are a few examples of this type of professional learning:
Peer coaching:
Peer coaching allows teachers to learn with one another in classroom settings. Unlike traditional workshops, peer coaching:
- Involves classroom observation focused on a specific instructional goal
- Provides non-evaluative feedback, fostering trust and professional risk-taking
- Encourages teachers to implement strategies, receive feedback, and refine practice in short, actionable cycles
Example:
You might model a reading lesson that highlights simple ways to boost academic discourse. Afterwards, sit down with colleagues for a coaching conversation and talk through what they noticed, what felt doable, and how each teacher can bring one or two of those strategies into their own classrooms to spark more engagement and meaningful discussion.
Reflective practice:
Teacher leaders model and promote reflection as a professional habit by:
- Encouraging teachers to examine instructional choices and student outcomes
- Using protocols for reflection (e.g., lesson study or post-lesson analysis)
- Connecting reflection to actionable next steps rather than self-critique
Example:
After implementing a new math strategy, you can reflect on what errors students seemed to make the most and adjust instruction based on evidence, rather than assumptions.
Action research:
Action research empowers teachers to investigate challenges directly related to their students by:
- Identifying a specific instructional problem
- Implementing a targeted strategy
- Collecting and analyzing data
- Reflecting on outcomes and refining practice
Example:
A grade-level team might look closely at how structured academic talk is affecting comprehension, using observational data to guide instructional changes.
3. Teacher leadership that builds school improvement
Teachers are often whom peers want to hear from the most! When teachers lead professional learning:
- Expertise is developed from within.
- Professional development becomes ongoing and contextual.
- Leadership capacity is distributed, strengthening school culture.
Example:
Instructional leads facilitate PD sessions aligned with school improvement goals, ensuring consistency and long-term impact.
4. Content-specific pedagogy
Content-specific pedagogy is a powerful professional development focus because it helps teachers understand how students learn within each discipline. Here are a few examples of content-specific PD:
Literacy:
This helps to align literacy instruction with the science of reading, emphasizing how students acquire foundational and advanced literacy skills. This includes:
- Explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension
- Understanding how decoding supports comprehension
- Using data to differentiate reading instruction and provide early intervention
Example:
In an ELA lesson, you can prioritize implementing systematic phonics instruction and analyze assessment data to adjust small-group instruction for students who need help with decoding and fluency.
Writing:
Effective PD supports teachers in teaching writing as a process rather than a product by focusing on:
- How writing instruction changes depending on the genre
- Using mentor texts to model craft and conventions
- Providing targeted feedback aligned to clear success criteria
Example:
For a writing lesson, you can collaborate to develop common writing rubrics and plan mini-lessons that address organization and evidence use across content areas.
Math:
Effective math PD helps teachers develop students’ conceptual reasoning. Key focuses include:
- Using multiple representations (area models, number lines, manipulatives) to make abstract concepts concrete
- Facilitating mathematical discourse that encourages students to explain their thinking
Example:
In a math lesson, you can examine student work on fraction division, identify misconceptions, and redesign lessons using fraction models and real-world contexts.
Science:
High-quality science PD emphasizes how scientists think and work, not just content knowledge. Teachers focus on:
- Designing investigations that require students to ask questions, analyze data, and construct explanations
- Integrating modeling with evidence-based argumentation and reasoning.
- Connecting scientific concepts to real-world phenomena
Example:
In a science lesson, you can revise a traditional lab to include student-designed experiments and lessons, and structured scientific argumentation using claims, evidence, and reasoning.
5. Differentiation to support all students
Differentiated instruction equips teachers with the tools needed to meet the diverse academic, linguistic, and cognitive needs of all learners. This includes:
- Using tiered texts or resources at varying levels of complexity
- Pre-teaching vocabulary and concepts to support comprehension
- Offering enrichment opportunities that deepen learning for advanced students
Example:
In a social studies lesson, you might offer several primary sources on the same event—each written at a different reading level—while all students work toward the same analytical task.
Staff development topics for educators
In addition to professional learning topics, there are also some themes that can be addressed at the staff level:
- Building shared instructional practices so all students experience consistent, high-quality teaching across classrooms.
- Strengthening collaboration and communication among grade level teams, departments, and specialists.
- Developing common approaches to assessment and feedback to ensure clarity for both teachers and students.
- Supporting schoolwide goals so every educator understands their role in the collective success.
- Creating a culture of continuous improvement where educators and support staff feel valued and encouraged to try new ideas.
Build a culture of growth
High-quality professional development is one of the most powerful ways schools can support you and the students you serve every day. When professional learning is intentional and grounded in research-based practices, it empowers educators to continuously refine their instruction and respond to the diverse needs of learners.
By investing in ongoing and collaborative professional learning, schools create a culture where teachers feel supported, valued, and equipped to innovate. This helps provide lasting impact for both educators and students.
***
HMH professional learning delivers targeted coaching and resources that align directly with your math and ELA curriculum, supporting educators to drive meaningful student growth.
Boost engagement with these proven and practical tips from real classroom coaches.
