In early November 2013, the authors started talking about visiting the Hurley School, a dual-language school in Boston, Massachusetts. The Hurley School had spent considerable time transitioning to the Common Core State Standards on literacy, but little time addressing the shifts in math. They worried that math classes were no longer rigorous…

Discussion-based protocols--an "agreed upon set of discussion or observation rules that guide coach/teacher/student work, discussion, and interactions" (Ippolito & Lieberman, 2012, p. 79)--can help focus and structure productive professional learning discussions. However, while protocols are slowly growing into essential elements of…

Guidelines for conferences before an observation almost always call for the teacher to start with a statement of the objective. In this article, the author advises teachers to dwell for 10 to 15 minutes on conferring with a singular focus on the actual content and no dialogue at all yet about the activities or other aspects of a lesson. This…

In September 2009, the Detroit public school now known as Dixon Educational Learning Academy was best described by terms too often used to characterize persistently low-performing urban schools--frequent leadership turnover, demoralized staff, student violence, poor attendance, a physical plant in horrendous shape, episodic and irrelevant…

Through learning communities, schools can change to strengthen educator practice and improve student learning outcomes. So can districts. For 20 years, the authors have helped states, districts, and schools in the United States and Canada implement Whole-Faculty Study Groups, a design for learning communities. During the 2010-11 school year, they…

Academic language has been referred to as a gatekeeper, something that stands in the way of academic success for native and nonnative speakers alike. In rural eastern North Carolina, many students do double the work because they speak nonstandard dialects, lack the background knowledge for school success, and thereby disengage from the classroom.…

Education researchers frequently seek out districts, schools, and teachers as partners for professional learning projects. They share their ambitious vision--a new model of professional learning that will support an empowered community, instructional improvement, and student achievement. The authors, along with other members of their research…

Sometimes partners find one another when they're not looking. In South Carolina, education leaders at Georgetown County School District were seeking only information when they attended a workshop sponsored by the South Carolina Department of Education. The two-day learning experience, provided by SEDL, a nonprofit organization based in Austin,…

Hurricane Katrina blew across the St. Bernard Parish Public Schools district in Chalmette, Louisiana, on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, bringing with it a wall of water that flooded everything for miles, putting the school system's 18 buildings under several feet of water filled with mud, gasoline, oil, dead fish, and other debris. Eleven weeks…

Having data about student academic performance motivates school leaders to perform better as educators, and tells them where they need to concentrate their efforts to improve. As principal of Ernie Pyle Middle School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this author finds that the constant use of relevant data helps him stay focused on his instructional…

In March 2008, teachers and leaders of the mathematics programs grades 6-12 in the Clark County School District (Las Vegas, Nevada) found themselves under the urgent spotlight of failed expectations. District leaders and teachers had been bold enough to create highstakes, districtwide common assessment semester exams in five subject areas of…

The Partnership for Reform in Secondary Science and Mathematics (PRiSSM) is a three-year project that targeted mathematics and science teachers in middle and high schools from six districts in southwest Washington. Consistent with NSDC (2009) recommendations for professional development, PRiSSM involved collaborative teacher teams in reflecting on…

Middle and high school teachers across academic disciplines face increased pressure to address the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English language arts and for literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. This means that the responsibility of preparing students to read, write, talk, and think critically about…

Teachers in rural settings find it difficult to access quality professional development that can improve student science achievement. These teachers are serving the 10 million students, or about 19% percent of the nation's total public school enrollment, who attend school in a rural district. Studies show that long-term, in-depth methods of…

The best science teachers are not only experts in teaching and knowledgeable about science content, but they are also great at teaching science. They have specialized teaching knowledge, including knowledge of effective pedagogical practices in science, student difficulties with understanding content, and curricular purposes. As a result,…