Raise your hand if you’ve ever sat through a Professional Development workshop that missed the mark. Too often, PD takes the form of a one-time presentation where educators listen passively rather than engage in deep learning and application. Despite good intentions, little of the content translates into meaningful classroom practice.
This was a persistent challenge for Dr. Kevin Popadines who, when tasked with designing and facilitating PD for teachers in his district, quickly realized that his K-12 classroom experience and education credentials had not prepared him to facilitate learning for adults. Kevin turned to adult learning theory, known as andragogy, popularized by Malcom Knowles, and later wrote both his dissertation and a book on this topic. Kevin also contributed editorial feedback on the 10th edition of Knowles’s (2025) seminal book, The Adult Learner.
Knowles identified six core assumptions that shape how adults learn:
In 2025, Kevin set out to create a continuing-education course for school leaders that would help them apply these andragogy assumptions in their own contexts. Professional learning should inspire, not just inform. Yet too often, PD is something educators attend rather than experience. Our goal was to design a model that reflects how adults learn, and one that practices what it teaches.
To bring the idea to life, Kevin partnered with Dr. Heather Leslie, an instructional designer at the University of San Diego with a background in adult education.Together, their collaboration merged expertise in andragogy and instructional design to create a course that embodied its own philosophy. The following overview offers insights for others designing or facilitating PD–especially, online PD, a growing and flexible option for busy educators.
Designing an Online Course That Models Adult Learning Principles
The course, School Improvement – Thinking Outside the Box, is a fully asynchronous, self-paced online course for busy professionals. Learners have up to six months to complete seven modules that include readings from Kevin’s book Improving Schools, reflection journals, action plan assignments, and a final project that ties everything together through meaningful, real-world application. The flexible pacing supports adults’ preference for autonomy and self-direction in learning.
We intentionally embedded adult learning principles throughout the course. These five design principles guided every decision, from how we introduced new ideas to how we assessed learning.
Design Principle #1: Start with Why – Tap Into Learners’ Curiosity and Gain Their Attention Through Relevance
Adults need a compelling why before they engage in learning (Need to Know assumption). Each module begins with a short introduction designed to gain attention through a relatable scenario or rhetorical question that sparks recognition and relevance. Here is an example of a rhetorical hook used in the course:
Have you ever sat through a professional development session where the slides felt familiar, the strategies didn’t quite fit your needs, and you left unsure how to apply what you’d learned the next day?
This moment of recognition invites participants to analyze why past PD fell short and positions the course as a solution. It models what PD designers can do in any context: begin with lived experience, not abstraction.
Each module also includes a short audio recording that contextualizes the topic through concise storytelling and professional empathy, allowing for flexible, on-the-go engagement. Transcripts and closed captions ensure accessibility.
We also reframed traditional learning outcomes as reflection questions to transform them from static statements into invitations for inquiry. Questions can spark curiosity, invite dialogue, and encourage deeper engagement, aligning with adult learners’ needs for relevance and self-direction (Readiness to Learn and Self-Concept assumptions).
Examples of reflection-based learning outcomes:
For PD designers, this shift from “What should participants know?” to “What should participants wonder?” can promote curiosity, ownership, and engagement.
Learners address the reflection questions in their assignments. Every assignment begins with a short why statement, explaining the purpose and value of the work, followed by clear instructions for the what and how.
Kevin’s grounding in Knowles’ Need to Know assumption shaped the emphasis on relevance and purpose. Heather’s design perspective transformed static objectives into dynamic prompts that invite reflection and dialogue—illustrating how collaboration between content and design expertise elevates learning.
Design Principle #2: Build in Reflection – Help Learners Make Meaning Through Experience
Adults learn through reflection. It’s how they connect new ideas to what they already know, transform experience into insight, and translate knowledge into action. Reflection allows learners to pause, look inward, and make sense of their practice, an essential component of meaningful professional learning.
This kind of reflection supports two of Knowles’ key assumptions: Experience and Orientation to Learning. It invites adults to draw from their diverse professional backgrounds and make connections between theory and application, bridging past experience with future action.
Each module includes a reflection journal assignment prompting learners to engage in this meaning-making process. For example, learners might analyze a past PD session through the lens of adult learning theory and explore how their leadership role could evolve through stronger fluency in andragogy.
Research consistently shows that journaling supports exploration, engagement, and critical thinking. It helps adults articulate evolving understanding, test ideas, and build confidence in their own voice. For school leaders, reflection strengthens metacognition and their capacity to apply new concepts within complex systems.
Design Principle #3: Offer Choice and Flexibility
Adults value autonomy and want learning to fit their lives. Each journal assignment can be submitted as a written entry, audio recording, or short video—aligning with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines (CAST, n.d.) and recognizing that learners process and express thinking differently depending on time, environment, and comfort.
A teacher might record a reflection during a commute, while another writes quietly at the end of the day. The goal is to reduce barriers and encourage authentic engagement. Offering multiple ways to participate signals trust and respect, essential to Knowles’ Self-Concept assumption. It also supports Knowles’ Motivation to Learn assumption, as adults are more intrinsically driven when they have ownership over how, when, and why they engage in learning.
For PD designers, flexibility is not just a convenience—it’s a statement of respect for adult learners. Even small choices in pacing, modality, or expression can transform compliance-driven PD into learner-centered professional growth.
Design Principle #4: Prioritize Growth Over Compliance – Create Feedback Systems That Model Continuous Learning
In most professional development, feedback is either absent or framed as evaluation, something to be endured rather than used. To model a growth-oriented learning culture, we replaced traditional grading with a complete/incomplete feedback system emphasizing engagement over correctness. Learners earn full credit when they fully address the reflection questions; if not, they can revise and resubmit after receiving targeted feedback, without penalty.
When a learner’s reflection lacks depth, the instructor’s feedback might ask, “You’ve described your PD experience clearly; can you connect it to one of Knowles’ assumptions about adult learning?” The learner revises and resubmits, deepening their understanding in the process. By removing the pressure to “get it right,” this approach promotes self-direction (Knowle’s Self-Concept assumption), encourages intellectual risk-taking, and reinforces that professional learning is iterative, not performative. It also reinforces Knowles’ Motivation to Learn assumption, cultivating intrinsic engagement through purposeful feedback and a focus on growth rather than external reward.
One challenge of online, asynchronous learning can be the absence of a strong community climate (Knowles, 1980). Knowles emphasized the need for a safe, trusting, and respectful environment. Our feedback model addresses this by fostering psychological safety through dialogue and non-punitive feedback, mirroring the kind of climate educators seek to create in their own schools.
For PD designers, the takeaway is practical: replace evaluative rubrics and attendance metrics with feedback loops that invite revision and reflection. When professional learning mirrors the growth mindset we aim to cultivate in classrooms, it becomes a model of learning rather than a measure of it.
Design Principle #5: Connect Reflection to Action – Turn Insights into Practice
Adults need to see how learning applies to their real contexts. According to Knowles’ Orientation to Learning assumption, adults are problem-centered rather than subject-centered—they learn best when applying knowledge to authentic challenges. Reflection deepens understanding, but reflection paired with action cements it.
Each module includes an Action Plan Assignment that guides learners in applying adult learning theory to their own setting. In one of the action plan assignments, participants identify a professional learning need, outline actionable steps, anticipate barriers, and propose ways to measure progress. The action plan also addresses the module’s reflection question:
How can I intentionally apply adult learning theory to design professional learning that meets the real-world needs of educators in my current or future leadership role?
This connection between reflection and application ensures learners don’t merely think about change, they design it. Like the journals, action plans are evaluated using the complete/incomplete rubric focused on authentic engagement. Learners who fully address the question earn credit, those who need to strengthen their analysis may revise and resubmit. This reinforces that learning is iterative and growth-oriented, helping participants move from analysis to action, a hallmark of adult learning.
The ability to apply learning in ways that match each learner’s needs and timing also supports Knowles’ assumption of Readiness to Learn. Readiness speaks to when an adult is motivated to apply new knowledge. By offering flexible pacing and opportunities to connect work to what is most relevant for each learner, the course design becomes truly learner-centered.
While participants are encouraged to begin implementing their action plans during the course, not everyone can do so immediately. In a school-based PD context, however, this final step—implementation—is critical. It transforms plans into lived experience and reactivates the cycle of reflection, feedback, and revision. Ideally, professional learning should sustain this ongoing loop of reflection → action → evaluation → refinement so that growth becomes continuous rather than episodic.
Our collaboration–merging instructional design with adult learning expertise–demonstrates that professional development can model the very principles it teaches. Each design principle in School Improvement: Thinking Outside the Box reflects a simple but transformative idea: when we treat educators as adult learners, professional learning becomes meaningful, relevant, and sustainable.
Together, these five principles—Start with Why, Build in Reflection, Offer Choice and Flexibility, Prioritize Growth Over Compliance, and Connect Reflection to Action—form a framework that PD designers can adapt in any context. They are not complex innovations, but intentional choices grounded in how adults learn best.
Professional development often falls short not because educators resist growth, but because it’s designed around compliance instead of curiosity. When PD shifts from performance to reflection, from attendance to agency, and from delivery to design, it becomes something more authentic. Curiosity, reflection, autonomy, feedback, and application aren’t add-ons; they are learning.
For those designing PD and training: treat your educators as partners in learning. Build structures that invite inquiry, provide flexibility, and make room for iteration. When we model the same trust, relevance, and curiosity we hope to see in classrooms, we create professional learning that doesn’t just inform, it transforms.
References
CAST (n.d.). The UDL Guidelines. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/
Knowles, M. S. (1980). The modern practice of adult education. Follett Publishing Company.
Knowles, M. S., Robinson, P. A., & Caraccioli, C. (2025). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development. Routledge.
Kevin Popadines, Ed.D., is an educational leader and author of Improving Schools: Simple Approaches and Understandings to Realize Growth. His research and practice focus on applying adult learning theory to professional development. He teaches the continuing education course, School Improvement – Thinking Outside the Box at the University of San Diego as well as facilitates the Professional Development Facilitation and Leadership Certificate.
Heather Leslie, D.B.A., M.Ed., is an instructional designer and adjunct instructor at the University of San Diego specializing in adult learning and online course design. She works with faculty and educational leaders to create learner-centered professional learning experiences.