Educators seeking new information to improve teaching strategies and connections with students know that it can be a challenge to integrate new ideas into existing routines and day-to-day practices. While social and emotional learning may seem like a new development to be studied and adopted, it isn’t about adding one program or strategy. Rather, it’s…

Many of us have been lucky enough in our lives that we can identify someone we’d call a mentor, someone who taught us how things work and helped us navigate through the difficulties we face trying to establish ourselves. For some of us, our mentor may very well have been a teacher, but what about…

While engaged in cycles of inquiry or improvement, teams may collaborate to write SMART goals for students but skip the stage of writing goals for themselves. However, a deliberate focus on educator learning with intentional goal setting is what makes a learning cycle particularly valuable for educators and is unique to Learning Forward’s team learning…

By Michelle Bowman The Student Success Learning Network, a collaboration of 15 school districts facilitated by Learning Forward, is focused on supporting students in college and career readiness. Districts participating in the network learn strategies and tactics to effect change on a chosen readiness indicator. After an initial planning session with each system’s team lead…

By Peter Carpenter When did you first learn about rocks? I distinctly remember sitting in my fourth-grade classroom at Wedgewood Elementary School in Turnersville, New Jersey in the mid-1980’s learning about rocks. My teacher called out the four different types of rocks, and I remember one name jumping out at me as she wrote the…

For Teacher Appreciation Week this year, we wanted to hear how teachers not only inspire their students, but also how they inspire other educators. We asked professional developers everywhere to share how teachers have inspired them. To make it even more exciting, whoever received the most shares or retweets would win a brand new iPad!…

By Stephanie Hirsh One of the most frequent questions I have been asked over the years is: What are the essential conditions for launching a new initiative? Often what people want to know is whether they should kick off their new program with volunteers or should they mandate total involvement. I typically answer with the…

I remember how excited I was to begin my teaching career. My principal handed me my keys, my textbook teacher’s edition, and the district curriculum guide. I spent hours imagining how I would transform my classroom into an amazing learning space. I also assumed there would be guidance to ensure my success, but that wasn’t…

When implementing a new initiative to help teachers, what really makes a new technology or resource stick? Learning Forward’s recent report, Beyond Barriers: Encouraging Teacher Use of Feedback Resources, looks at the value of investing in change management processes to aid in the adoption and use of new tools. We often talk about change management,…

By Bonnie Hain and Jim Mirabelli Throughout the teaching-learning process, successful students and their teachers set clear learning goals and monitor progress to meet those goals. As teachers learn their students’ strengths and needs in relation to learning goals, they can change instruction and practice to acquire deeper knowledge and understandings, ultimately increasing student achievement….