Learning Forward Blog
Crises demand never-fail support for educators
By Stephanie Hirsh |
Yesterday I was horrified to wake to the news of the mass shooting in Las Vegas. We mourn for the loss of so many lives. When I hear about this on top of the ongoing recovery efforts from the hurricanes in Puerto Rico, Florida, and Texas, I think always about how we can best support…
Implementing learning teams? You have options
By Tracy Crow |
“Should we be rolling out our new learning teams with every teacher across the school or start with just one or two teams?” This question led to an interesting conversation at Learning Forward’s Summer Institutes in Denver, Colorado. The educator who asked had spent the previous two days studying Becoming a Learning Team (Learning Forward, 2017), a book we…
An advocate’s resume: What qualifies you to talk to members of Congress
By Melinda George |
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGiRTC5CDrE[/embedyt] In March 2017, the education community woke to a daunting professional learning crisis: The Trump Administration’s 2018 budget proposed elimination of the Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants Program (Title II, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act). As educators face increasingly higher demands for student outcomes in a more diverse population, it’s…
Principals, here’s how to have hard conversations with younger teachers
By Jennifer Abrams |
Teachers, to get advice on having hard conversations with your veteran administrator, read this previous blog post. Principals often tell me their entire workday is filled with fires to extinguish, a few challenging parent interactions, and a load of hard conversations. Some feel those communications are routine and don’t find them too difficult: “I don’t have…
The real power of collaboration
By Keri Launius |
Galveston County Learning Leaders is a collaborative group of administrators in Galveston County, Texas, that includes Clear Creek ISD, Friendswood ISD, Galveston ISD, and Santa Fe ISD. The group’s primary goal is to learn from each other and work with Learning Forward consultants to enhance their learning to build the capacity of all leaders. This…
Honesty takes time, but it’s worth it
By Frederick Brown |
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRE64ZUAySM[/embedyt] An August 13 Washington Post column carried this headline: “Why principals lie to ineffective teachers: Honesty takes too long.” In it, the author discusses two recent studies that revealed principals’ struggles in telling ineffective teachers they need to improve. The studies, performed by researchers at Vanderbilt, Stanford, and Education Researcher, compared principals’ formal evaluations of…
What will be your professional learning legacy?
By Heather Lageman |
As we begin another school year, this is the perfect time to reflect on what brought us to the profession. What drew you to education? What makes you excited to walk into school buildings every fall? Why do you love learning? For me, fall is not about the leaves on the ground and the chill in the air….
Speak up for your right to learn every day
By Stephanie Hirsh |
Dear colleagues: Welcome to the 2017-18 school year — which I hope is not referred to in future years as the year professional development died. I know you have so much on your plate as you look toward this new school year: the students whose futures are in your hands, the family members who entrust…
Report and tool kit build momentum for effective professional learning
By Elizabeth Foster |
Across the country, states and districts are thinking about their Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plans — the funding, the requirements, the changes that are in the plan that will need to be implemented in the coming years. While there is a lot to consider, ESSA can potentially create real opportunity to improve teaching and…
Pittsburgh District aligns learning with student goals
By Linda Jacobson |
The Redesign PD Community of Practice engages teams from 22 of the nation’s leading school districts and charter management organizations in identifying local professional learning challenges and creating scalable solutions. Learning Forward facilitates the community, where teams participate in continuous learning cycles to improve how they manage their professional learning systems. In the midst of major transition,…
