Professional learning is a key driver for improving the use of evidence-based practices in education. However, participating in high-quality external professional learning requires a significant investment of time and resources, which can be challenging for under-resourced or minimally staffed educational settings. 

A peer mentoring approach to professional learning is one way to resolve this challenge. It involves a small number of staff completing external professional learning and sharing what they learnt with colleagues who did not attend. This approach to professional learning is common practice in many workplaces. While some workplaces may have an organised approach to peer mentoring, others may expect it to happen organically.

This study investigated the feasibility and impact of peer mentoring for sharing skills and knowledge from professional learning, in comparison to an approach where all or most teachers and educators receive external professional learning.

Overall, the findings suggest that while peer mentoring requires a high level of planning and support, it is a feasible and promising way to disseminate professional learning so more educators and teachers, and ultimately children, can benefit.

Key findings

• All educators and teachers, regardless of professional learning approach, demonstrated learning in terms of knowledge and use of evidence-based practices. 
• Several factors influenced the success of peer mentoring. 
• The upfront cost and time investment for peer mentoring was lower but the overall time investment was similar to the direct participation approach.