Conversation #4 could have gone on for hours. Dr. Keeanna Warren, is the Chief Executive Officer of Purdue Polytechnic High Schools. She works tirelessly to build the schools that students need, which she clarifies as "the schools I needed as a learner". She is also deeply committed to "building the schools that teachers need because too often leaders forget about this second part."

"One of my most important considerations when designing professional learning is to cede most of the decision-making power to the teachers and staff members closest to the classroom. Research tells us that the professional learning structures we have in most schools (like one-off professional development sessions) don’t really work. Why not try new things to see what could work instead? Providing room for significant levels of differentiation, with voice and choice, has been a very successful philosophy for us.

Some examples include:

• The educators in my schools find the unconference model highly effective. So many beautiful collaborations have grown out of this, including an annual organization-wide conference. With no pre-designed sessions, the events always feel organic, with the ability to 'vote with your feet' and actually be 'selfish' with your learning. We always administer staff surveys after the unconferences so that people can elevate what they want to learn more about.
• Every Wednesday is a professional development day at our schools. For the first week of the month, teachers select what it is they need to use the time to do - this can span anything from lesson planning to squeezing in a dentist appointment - it is THEIR time. Subsequent weeks focus on things like academic coaching from the principal, collaborating to support students’ social emotional learning (SEL) needs, or technology integration through peer-to-peer teacher training.
• We’ve tended to keep professional learning internal because over the years, teachers have expressed that 'the expertise is in-house already, so why are we bringing in external facilitators?' But sometimes it can be helpful to have outside organizations validate the solid work we’re doing and provide guidance around potential blind spots. In those cases, the qualifications we look for from providers are a good reputation in the field and ongoing positive survey feedback from our teachers. It always helps too if a partner has earned a positive recommendation from one of our team members through a previous engagement."

Let's keep the conversation going. If you're a district leader who leverages unconferences or other models in which teachers train other teachers on best practices, please share your professional learning strategies with us.