What does an effective classroom look and sound like? What does it mean to have students engaged in learning? What is high-quality instruction? To answer these questions, the Greece Central School District in New York created a common language around teaching and learning as a way to support student achievement. The district developed a five-year…

The York Region District School Board is recognized as a high-performing district in Ontario, Canada, and has also garnered international attention. Visitors from across Canada, as well as Singapore, Finland, England, Scotland, Holland, the Bahamas, Korea, China, and Taiwan, have come to learn about its system and observe the teaching, learning,…

How does professional learning look and feel in high-poverty schools where every student makes at least one year's worth of progress every year? How do schools and leaders put all the varied components of professional learning together so that they support all students learning every day? What professional learning grounds and sustains…

School leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on pupil learning. Research makes clear that leadership must be at the forefront when attempting to reform underachieving schools. The question is: What kind of leadership? Not just any type of principal leadership will suffice for schools striving to build the instructional…

This article describes the use of standards to guide the reform of a struggling high school in Grant Michigan. The author describes the challenges and obstacles that the school was facing, and admits that school reform was difficult. Turnaround seemed impossible, but it held the promise of something larger than life: successful students who become…

This article describes three types of data that can impact how instructional coaches face the challenges in measuring the impact of their work with teachers on student learning. Descriptions of the three types of data--"shifts in teacher reflective tendencies," "the use of student performance as an indicator of success," and…

Joellen Killion reports on the results of a five-year professional development intervention consisting of workshops and curriculum units conducted in six elementary schools in an urban district to gauge teacher knowledge and practices in science instruction for English language learners. The study looked at predictors of teacher change that…

Saskatoon Public Schools made the decision 10 years ago to undertake major changes in how it supports professional learning. The district began with two major priorities: increasing literacy in elementary schools and transforming high schools to increase student engagement. The district appointed a facilitator for each priority in central office,…

In designing professional learning for system-level leaders, two participant roles emerge as key: learners of content and agents of change. For learners, the principles of strong instruction apply. Exposure to content must occur repeatedly, be connected to prior knowledge, and is most effective when communities of learners work together. As change…

While teachers face new expectations for student learning and more equitable educational outcomes, instruction and assessment remain rooted in traditional approaches that are largely inequitable, culturally irrelevant, and intellectually disengaging, contributing to gaps in academic achievement across student groups (Darling-Hammond, 2010; King…

The rapidly changing world and the increasingly complex demands placed on schools because of that change has led to an increasing awareness that the school principal alone cannot provide all of the leadership necessary for school development. More and more school districts are asking teachers to share leadership responsibilities with school…

This article describes the collaborative efforts of the Webster Central School District in New York, USA, and the Learning Forward's Center for Results consultants, in the fall of 2010 in a focus to improve the elementary literacy program. The School District realized it was vital to have a strong, sustained foundation of professional and…

To ensure that all students learn at high levels, teachers must collaborate with colleagues to examine student achievement data, plan or adjust instruction, and track student progress. By meeting in professional learning communities, teachers continually examine instructional strategies and improve student learning. This school-based,…

Every day, teachers and administrators come to work and do the best job they know how. In the book "School Systems That Learn" (Ash & D'Auria, 2013), the authors argue that most school systems, as they are currently designed, have reached or nearly reached the limits of their capacity and that systemic change is necessary to…

The growing acceptance of collaboration as a necessity in high-quality learning has fueled the rapid growth of online tools to better support educators. Technological tools require an investment of time and energy to properly explore and evaluate. Unfortunately, the number of collaboration tools that have appeared in recent years makes it almost…