The Academy afforded the opportunity to solve an authentic problem of practice in my workplace. Collaborating with coaches and Academy colleagues, I designed a customized learning plan connected with my daily work, learned how to use evaluation tools to measure educator and student outcomes and became a staunch advocate for professional learning. Most importantly, the relationships developed within the Academy, a deliberately diverse group, fostered a knowledge and idea exchange that built our social capital.

The Learning Forward Academy is "access." The Academy created opportunities to learn from research, practitioners, and organizations across the globe. The Academy provided the tools and "know how" to become architects of learning for adults and students and advocates for the quality of support needed to change practice. The Academy is part of a larger organization that works to empower educators to use that access to launch movements driven to improve student learning. Most importantly, that access never goes away. It's always there.

The Learning Forward Academy is a 2.5 year experience which supported me in implementing a highly effective teacher development program and held me accountable to measuring and improving the impact of the professional learning implemented. The learning I received transferred to other teacher development programs I now lead and emphasized the importance of monitoring and measuring impact to ensure professional learning is effective.

The Learning Forward Academy redefined what learning as an adult is suppose to be. This dynamic professional and personal learning experience provided the space that me to grapple with my own understandings and values around the work I do through self-reflection, processing and discussion with like minded peers from all over the world. As Supervisor of Professional Development for a mid-size school district, I now model much of the adult learning I facilitate using the principles I experienced in the Academy.

The Learning Forward Academy provides a forum for educators to analyze their practices and engage in dedicated, uninterrupted think tank-type experiences with individuals from all facets of the education.

If you are someone who truly believes in evidence of everyone learning every day, if you are inspired by AHA moments and lead with a learning stance, if you crave the comaraderie of people who are bravely making a difference, the Academy is the experience for you. The Academy gave me ideas that greatly improved my practice. It gave me life long friends. Most of all, the Academy gave me hope.

Learning Forward Academy has been a transformational, system-changing professional learning opportunity for my colleagues and me and is truly changing the culture and focus in our district. The depth of job-embedded learning, networking with professionals across the world and spending quality time immersed in problem solving around real issues within our systems is something unique and rarely found in any other form.

The Learning Forward Academy is a safe learning community where we can challenge thinking, test hypothesis and grow in our own understanding of adult learning.