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Professional Learning

What is Professional Learning?

The WISELearn project believes that professional learning is an approach to learning among colleagues within a field of work. This usually includes Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) - "a group of people working interdependently toward the same goal." (DuFour, 2006).

WISELearn relies upon the work of Learning Forward, a professional learning association that has identified professional learning standards that have been widely adopted and used to guide learning opportunities for educators. DPI typically provides two types of professional learning to the field: technical assistance and ways to improve pedagogical practices. The WISELearn portal provides avenues to address both of these approaches.  

Explore Professional Learning Resources

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Search exceptional instructional resources and effective tools selected by and for Wisconsin educators.

Standards-Based Professional Learning

Curriculum Support Guide - For high quality, standards-aligned instructional materials to be most effective, educators need on-going, job-embedded professional learning and supports (Taylor et al., 2015).  These resources provide a structure for planning implementation of your high-quality instructional materials easier and more impactful.  Find out more on our Instructional Materials and Professional Learning pages. 

The standards are not a prescription for how education leaders and public officials should  work on improving the performance of  educators and their students. Instead, the  standards focus on one critical issue —  professional learning.


The main beliefs of the Learning Forward Standards are:

  1. Professional learning that improves educator effectiveness is fundamental to student learning.
  2. All educators have an obligation to improve their practice.
  3. More students achieve when educators assume collective responsibility for student learning.
  4. Successful leaders create and sustain a culture of learning.
  5. Effective school systems commit to continuous improvement for all adults and students

Please visit the Learning Forward website for more information on the standards and how to use them for your professional learning needs.