Darling-Hammond, Hyler, and Gardner (2017) shared findings and implications of their research on effective teacher professional development for The Learning Policy Institute. Based on their research with educators, they identified seven criteria for effective professional development that scholar-practitioners should consider while planning for and assessing professional learning programs. Highlights included the importance of employing immersing active learning experiences as a means for acquiring new knowledge. The significance of this was described as the opportunity for teachers to then use these same strategies (such as the jig-saw) to facilitate active learning in their own classrooms.
Their research also cited some of the more influential barriers to sustainable professional learning programs. Key to their findings was the limited amount of time available for teachers to implement new content. This situation is similar to Senge's (1990) description of delay in- the time it takes for conditions to catch up to the implementation of a decision. Just as astute organizational managers allow for delay before making drastic revisions to a plan, it is advised that school leaders also consider the time needed for teachers to become fluent with new content. It is also important that- during this time of practice- feedback be frequent and actionable, but not evaluative. Not only will early evaluation yield inaccurate results, it may also serve to frustrate and demotivate staff.
References
Darling-Hammond L., Hyler, M., and Gardner, M. (2017). Effective Teacher Professional Development. The Learning Policy Institute.
Senge, Peter M. (1990). The fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday/Currency.
Developing fluency takes a long time. I like to cite Gladwell's "Outliers", in which he exlpains the 10,000 hour rule; or 10,000 hour + natural ability = expertise/. We can extrapolate from this a lower number for fluency; perhaps in the neighborhood of 5,000 hours. In context the average full-time work year = 1,800 hours. So, conservatively, fluency could = ~2.7 years!