Authors:
Introduction
When educators lack continuous peer support, designed to improve the student learning experience and their practice, the field fails to equip them with necessary professional tools that could make all the difference in their classrooms.
This blog post is the second of three on the California Black Studies Curriculum Project (CABSC Project). In our first blog post, we discussed how educators defined Black Studies and why they chose to participate in the CABSC Project. Educators shared that they actively sought opportunities to collaborate with their peers, particularly those whose ethnoracial identities and educational values aligned with their own (read more here).
One of the research questions guiding the CABSC Research explicitly centers on the role of professional development (PD): What PD opportunities are necessary to equip all teachers with the knowledge and skills to teach Black Studies effectively, including addressing sensitive topics such as racial bias? In a research manuscript currently under review, we discuss at length this strong desire for external professional development offerings.
In this blog post, we next examine the new themes that emerged from our study on the topic of PD. We specifically examine how CABSC Project curriculum writers, advisory board members, and external experts described the need for—and the value of—ongoing professional development support for educators implementing the Black Studies curricula. We conclude with recommendations for implementing PD initiatives focused on Black Studies.
What is Professional Development?
PD activities in teacher education allow teachers to engage in activities that improve their instruction and enhance student learning (Desimone & Garet, 2015). Such activities can vary in terms of who provides the PD and, consequently, how it is structured. Desimone and Garet (2015) identified five features of effective PD: (a) subject matter focus, (b) active engagement by the teacher and their coaches, (c) alignment between the PD offerings and the teachers’ goals, (d) continuous support, and (e) peer collaboration.
Black educators have long embraced PD. Scholars have shown that Black educators—particularly those in the South—used their professional associations to improve teaching and learning (Walker, 1996, 2018). For example, the Georgia Teachers and Education Association (GTEA) (1945) reported that Black teachers developed work conferences that provided “group organized study, critical discussions, demonstrations, sharing of experiences, [and] evaluation of teaching” p. 20). Clearly, PD has served as an essential element of effective teaching and learning for decades.
The CABSC Project continues a legacy of collaborative PD. It remains attentive to both content and pedagogical learning and is strengthened by participant relationships.
Insights on Diverse and Collaborative PD
Effective PD provides educators with opportunities to build collegial relationships with their peers. However, schools do not always prioritize these opportunities, and, as a result, both teachers and students can be impacted negatively. One of our participants—Scott, an external expert who teaches Black Studies at the high school level—referred to this dynamic as a “crime of education.” Though educators often “talk about collaborative and group work,” he conceded, “that’s not what educators do, because there’s no actual structured time…to lesson plan ourselves, much less to actually be and talk and share, which is kind of backwards [when] we think about learning.” Scott suggested that while collaboration is widely recognized as essential to teaching, the reduction or absence of dedicated time for such collaboration deprives teachers of a critical component of working in the profession. This finding is particularly salient for educators teaching Black Studies, where materials, resources, and collaborative opportunities are often limited from the outset.
CREEO’s first blog post on the CABSC Project highlighted that effective PD is led by individuals who reflect the ethnoracial diversity of our classrooms and school communities. This ethnoracial match provides a gateway to stronger relationship building between PD leaders and recipients. Michelle, a member of the CABSC Project’s advisory board, emphasized this critical aspect of relationship building in PD sessions:
Intentional professional development [offerings] are from professional developers who are not [solely] white women…We need something different. And so, we have to be intentional about putting different faces and voices and perspectives in front of [educators], making sure they’re culturally rich and culturally relevant.
PD offerings led exclusively by individuals of a single ethnoracial background are inconsistent with best practices for implementing Black Studies curricula (Givens & Riddick, 2024). Michelle noted that effective PD should involve professionals with a range of ethnoracial identities who can speak to how these identities shape the learning experiences of both teachers and students. Involving PD leaders with diverse identities and experiences may create pathways for the relational and collaborative PD opportunities that teachers are seeking. This may also facilitate deeper discussions around questions of race and power that Black Studies curricula requires.
On Ongoing Support
Beyond building relationships, the CABSC Project also spotlighted educators’ desire for continuous support as they engage with new or more complex content and translate it into classroom practice. Desimone and Garet (2015) specifically addressed this component of effective PD, noting that ongoing support throughout the school year can enhance the integration of PD into teachers’ regular practice. Participants in the CABSC Project likewise echoed the vital importance of ongoing guidance.
Alexis, a CABSC advisory board member and educator at a science learning center that offers external PD opportunities, reflected on sustained learning in PD:
We need to think about the ways to develop relationships with the teachers that are not just one and done for professional development, because that’s how you get this again, sustained learning. Otherwise they’re just going to forget about [what they learned] and, like, throw it in the trash.
Alexis made the critical connection between relationship building and ongoing support, noting how the two work symbiotically.
When PD is long-term and includes peer engagement, educators are better able to think critically about their own practice and entertain new ways to engage in teaching and learning. Claire, a member of the CABSC curriculum development team, spoke to this point, noting the necessity of “having teachers experience [PD] themselves over a long period of time to be able to engage not only with the content of it, but to see the examples of different ways of being an instructor.” Peer-based PD over the long term can enable teachers to expand their repertoires and adapt their pedagogical approaches, which leads to stronger student achievement (Mosely, 2018). Scott echoed this idea: “We just need coaches to watch us teach, give feedback, watch us apply that feedback, [and] debrief again.” In short, teachers benefit from enduring, collaborative, and robust support.
Ultimately, the purpose of PD is always student-centered. Teachers benefit from effective PD, as do the students they teach. Evan, a member of the CABSC advisory board, emphasized this explicitly. Evan shared first that PD in the profession is “lifelong learning” that evolves. That is, continuous PD allows educators to ask, “What perspective do we want to interrogate this time? What perspectives are students going to be interested in this time? How can we connect to something that’s contemporary?” Evan further suggested that a guiding question for such a PD could be:
How do we create iterations of this curriculum that reflect my students within my context? Which could be New York City, which could be L.A., which are different contexts, right? It could be [the] same [Black Studies] curriculum but could be [done from] different perspectives and vantage points.”
Evan’s focus on ongoing support that responds to students’ experiences speaks to the heart of what the CABSC Project curriculum writers (and the many educators who preceded them) advocate.
Conclusion
Research focused on professional development through the CABSC Project revealed a desire for relationship-building across ethnoracial lines in PD activities. Participants also expressed a desire for ongoing PD support to enhance their practice further. The end goal is to develop educator skills and student-centered instructional practices. Adopting practical recommendations is critical to enhance the expertise of all educators and the learning experiences of all students (Desimone & Garet, 2015). Nevertheless, these aspects of the profession have too often been overlooked, and a new approach needs to be embraced. It is also important to remember that effective PD is not reserved exclusively for Black Studies implementation; it must apply to all educators across all subject areas.
What can result from PD opportunities in Black Studies that are ongoing, student-centered, collaborative, led by ethnoracially diverse educators, and focused on the wide range of Black people’s experiences in the United States and abroad? In our third and final blog post in this series, we consider which students will benefit from the effective implementation of a Black Studies curriculum and how.
References
Desimone, L. M., & Garet, M. S. (2015). Best practices in teachers’ professional development in the United States. Psychology, Society, & Education, 7(3), 252–263.
Georgia Teachers and Education Association. (1945, April 13). Over the state and in the field. The Herald. Retrieved October 26, 2025 from
https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:492895897$20i
Givens, J., & Riddick, Z. (2024). “We will just have to take it underground”: A Black Studies approach to teacher education and critical professional development.
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 10(4), 544–552. https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492241286094
Mosely, M. (2018). The Black Teacher Project: How racial affinity professional development sustains Black teachers. Urban Review, 50(2), 267–283.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-018-0450-4
Walker, V. S. (1996). Their highest potential: An African American school community in the segregated South The University of North Carolina Press.
Walker, V. S. (2018). The lost education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the hidden heroes who fought for justice in schools The New Press.