Every year, district leaders spend weeks building out professional development plans. It takes long hours to vet resources and careful planning to align training with long-term district goals—whether that means strengthening PLC teams, rolling out Marzano strategies, or reinforcing core instructional frameworks.
However, even the most thoughtful professional development plans have to contend with the unpredictability of the school year. There are lessons to plan, parents to contact, and grading to complete. With so much to do, it can be challenging to find time to pursue learning beyond scheduled in-service training sessions.
To keep the learning going all year round, Gale eBooks: Professional Learning offers material that’s scalable to district goals while remaining responsive to individual needs and adaptable to unpredictable schedules. Each title is a one-time purchase, giving every educator permanent access to high-quality professional development texts—no license renewals, no seat limits, and no need to reprint or reorder. Whether teachers are revisiting a topic introduced during summer training or taking time to explore new strategies, the resources are always available when needed.
Are you ready to simplify professional development and strengthen district alignment? Gale eBooks: Professional Learning supports your district priorities, providing high-quality, on-demand PD at scale.
Flexible Learning Paths
The positive impact of personalized learning is well-established among K-12 students, but it’s just as powerful for teachers. Despite that, nearly 1 in 5 educators report that they have no input in choosing their professional development opportunities, and only 4% are the primary decision makers. Without that sense of ownership, it’s hard for PD to feel relevant.
Gale eBooks: Professional Learning gives teachers more agency by complementing scheduled PD with personalized, self-paced learning. The platform encourages them to return to the material as it becomes relevant to what’s happening in their classrooms and keep building on it throughout the year.
Because resources are purchased individually and shared district-wide without added costs or license restrictions, administrators can offer more options without exceeding their budgets. That model makes it possible to meet a broader span of teacher interests, subject areas, and levels of experience, so professional learning stays relevant in practice and aligned with district goals.
Make Pilot Training More Accessible to the Whole Staff
Professional learning opportunities often begin with a core group attending a summer institute, participating in a pilot cohort, or receiving training at a conference. Gale eBooks: Professional Learning helps extend the reach of those investments by making a growing library of instructional tools available on demand to educators across the district.
For new team members, conferences and other immersive sessions may be out of reach. Offering an extensive range of PD content can enrich district-specific onboarding needs and related initiatives. For example, culturally responsive teaching specific to school demographics, or frameworks that new hires might not have previously encountered, such as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS).
Because districts can build curated collections over time, the platform becomes a central knowledge base for professional learning that allows new teachers to get up to speed faster and provides veterans a way to revisit and reinforce the frameworks they’ve built over the years.
Accessibility and Flexibility
Finding the time for professional development can be a challenge. Gale eBooks: Professional Learning reduces the logistical barriers that typically require long, uninterrupted blocks of attention, so it’s easier to interact meaningfully with high-quality content, even in small windows of time.
Chapter-level searches help educators skip directly to what’s most relevant to their needs. They can then highlight and annotate within the text and share those notes with colleagues, thanks to integration with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and popular learning management systems.
Gale eBooks also creates a more comfortable and user-friendly reading environment. ReadSpeaker text-to-speech gives educators the option to listen if that’s how they prefer to work with the material. For those who would rather read, adjustable fonts—including OpenDyslexic—and clean formatting help reduce eye strain, making sustained reading more manageable.
Themed Collections That Support District Priorities
Gale eBooks: Professional Learning features a growing library of collections developed with district-level priorities in mind. Each is built to support lasting instructional improvement without the pressure of annual renewals or replacement orders.
Let’s take a look at a few of the collections on offer along with several featured titles.
New Teacher Collection
The early years of teaching can feel like a sprint without a finish line. The New Teacher Collection helps early career educators build confidence as they transition into the classroom.
- You’re a Teacher Now! What’s Next? offers real-world answers to the questions new teachers may not want to ask out loud, like “How do I set up my classroom?” “How do I work with parents and guardians?” and “How do I plan and deliver engaging lessons?”
- Compassion as Our Compass helps educators build inclusive, emotionally aware learning environments with classroom-ready activities that foster stronger connections with students. The book also offers specific guidance for supporting high-mobility learners and creating a sense of belonging, even in classrooms where relationships are constantly in flux.
Browse the full New Teacher Collection to support early career educators without stretching your professional development budget.
Classroom Management and Behavior Collection
The Classroom Management and Behavior Collection offers practical strategies for creating positive and productive learning environments.
- Positive Behaviors Start with Positive Mindsets introduces the four foundational positive mindsets along with 28 actionable steps, such as gratitude journal prompts and growth mindset surveys, to promote student motivation.
- Everyday Executive Function Strategies gives educators ready-to-use ideas for helping students develop cognitive and emotional self-regulation.
Learn more about how the Classroom Management and Behavior Collection equips your teachers with research-backed strategies for managing behavior and building positive classroom communities.
Cross-Curricular Instructional Strategies and Assessment Collection
When instructional practices reinforce each other, students are more likely to retain what they learn and apply it in new, more thoughtful ways. The Cross-Curricular Instructional Strategies and Assessment Collection helps teachers create that continuity with learning that encourages critical thinking.
- Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum introduces creative, project-based strategies that help students engage deeply with content in any subject area.
- Using Primary Sources in the Classroom equips educators with tools to spark curiosity and deepen analysis by weaving historical documents into instruction across grade levels.
Discover more books in the Cross-Curricular Instructional Strategies and Assessment Collection that encourage student-centered learning across content areas.
Build a Professional Learning Library That Lasts
As your district fine-tunes its professional development plans, consider how to bolster your efforts in partnership with Gale.
Gale eBooks: Professional Learning allows districts to build a sustainable library of trusted PD titles that educators can return to throughout the year. It supports the long-term work of instructional alignment by making it easier for teachers to interact with the materials whenever and however they need them, keeping goals attainable by offering flexible, district-wide access in user-friendly formats.
Empower your district’s educators to meet their PD goals. Connect with your education consultant to explore resources to further your district’s goals.