Every student deserves to be seen, included, understood, and celebrated. For that to happen, teachers need to be culturally competent. Cultural competence is best built through reflecting on and discussing real-world experiences. Classroom vignettes support this difficult but important work. This article shares three fictional classroom vignettes…

Standards for Professional Learning set the vision for high-quality professional learning by defining the content, processes, and conditions that lead to great teaching and learning for all students and educators. Learning Forward believes that all educators have a role to play in advocating for Standards for Professional Learning adoption and…

As racial violence in America took on an international focus in summer 2020, many began to make pledges and statements against racism. The author heard multiple outcries for support from teams of school principals in her school district who wanted to do more than make a statement. The tool featured in this article was designed as a planning and…

Learning Forward's Professional Learning State and District Planner is a guide to help state, district, and school leaders implement professional learning to support high-quality curriculum and instructional materials. Grounded in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) definition of high-quality professional learning as intensive, data-driven,…

Kay Psencik, Frederick Brown, and Stephanie Hirsh explore how school leaders can apply a learning lens to achieve their ambitious goals for educators and students in "The Learning Principal," their new book for Learning Forward. Chapter 3, "Managing Change," details how leaders can create the conditions and learning…

Racial equity is a deep-seated value for principals Andrea Steele of Tucson, Arizona, Samuel Etienne of Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Eliza Loyola of Austin, Texas. As they strive to fulfill these values in their schools, each of these principals has found valuable tools and approaches, as well as a supportive virtual network, as they engaged in an…

Adequate resources are essential for professional learning to achieve desired outcomes for educators and students. Time is one of the most valuable resources for learning, but it is also one of the greatest resource challenges for education leaders, especially in the U.S. In the recent book "The Learning Principal," authors Kay Psencik,…

While the concept of being a professional prominently features in teaching standards worldwide, as a profession teachers do not devote much time to the study of what it takes to be one. In schools, the idea of defining, and then supporting, the emotional and psychological development required to be a professional remains on the periphery -- it is…

Effective mentors set clear expectations for their work with the teachers they support. This is a critical step in the process of building trust between mentor and mentee, and it is never more important than when mentors conduct observations of teachers as they engage in classroom instruction. With much teaching now occurring online, mentoring is…

As the new school year starts, one of educators' many challenges is assessing where students' skills stand and filling the gaps. Students may be behind where they would typically be at the beginning of their grade level as a result of missing out on instruction last spring. With the unplanned transition to distance learning, many teachers focused…

This article presents a reflection tool--created by The New Teacher Project (TNTP) and Learning Forward--for shifting the cognitive load to students from teachers so that students are actively engaged, use critical thinking, and demonstrate understanding. Coaches, teacher leaders, and other professional learning leaders can use this tool in…

Research supports the contention that professional learning communities (PLCs) are a "path to change in the classroom" (DuFour, 1997). Teachers treading this path, however, can encounter obstacles or plateau as a result of five common challenges: incoherence, insularity, unequal participation, congeniality, and privacy. Fortunately,…

Since 2013, a majority of states have been working to implement new standards for K-12 science education that are based on the National Research Council's framework for science education and the Next Generation Science Standards. The new science standards emphasize deeper understanding of content in relation to practices and a three-dimensional…

There is substantial evidence documenting the impact of high-quality, educative learning materials on teacher practices and student learning, yet this evidence has not translated widely into more equitable learning opportunities for all students. English learners tend to have less access to intellectually rich, grade-level content and…

Many teachers and administrators recognize the importance of social and emotional development for student success but do not feel that they have the time or tools to support social and emotional learning (SEL). The American Institutes for Research developed the "Social and Emotional Learning Coaching Toolkit: Keeping SEL at the Center"…