Joellen Killion

Community views of pro­fessional development often depend on how teachers and support staff talk about their professional learning and how school and district leaders and school boards characterize it. Read how teacher leaders can use their voices to advocate for their colleagues and students within their communities.

Despite the investment of time in teacher team meetings, an essential step of the core work is often neglected -- learning. Learn how to use the cycle of continuous improvement to ensure professional learning on multiple levels.

Changing our name from NSDC to Learning Forward provides an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of names -- for both Learning Forward and those in teacher leader roles. Consider several actions that encourage educators to examine and recommit to teacher leadership.

The Quality Teaching standard focuses a laser beam on the importance of professional development for integrating content knowledge, instruction, and assessment.

Read how thriving learning communities play a role in the three motivators that drive educators to succeed. Killion explores how lessons from Daniel Pink's latest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, apply to school-based teams.

As teacher leaders strive to help their colleagues meet NSDCs Equity standard, a key consideration is creating a safe learning environment. Step through five elements of establishing an environment for learning, with discussion questions to examine in each.

The changing role of central office staff: Administrators provide a crucial link to learning resources By Joellen Killion , Pat Roy

In exploring NSDC's learning standard, Killion travels through time to detail how professional development has changed and outlines the importance of considering different levels of learning for different purposes.

NSDC's Resources standard states: Staff development that improves the learning of all students requires resources to support adult learning and collaboration. Coaches and teacher leaders can play a critical role in monitoring and measuring the impact of how precious professional development resources are spent.