English learners are capable of doing the same demanding work and developing the same complex skills as their peers who are native speakers. Indeed, recent education policies have specified that all students should meet common college and career-ready standards. Yet many schools use an outdated and ineffective approach to educating English…

Curriculum is the "heart" of any educational Organization. Realizing its importance, many school districts engage in a curriculum renewal cycle. Doing this well can be a crucial factor in students' academic success During a typical cycle, the district identifies an area of study, at which point district and school personnel dive deep…

As professional learning director in California's Palo Alto Unified School District, Kelly Bikle attended a California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress Institute (CAASPP) workshop with a district team composed of our assessment coordinator, a special education inclusion specialist, and several teachers. The goal was to learn about…

Niamh McQuillan, development and instructional coach at Windsor Mill Middle School in Baltimore County Public Schools, Maryland, writes here that, as a teacher, she always liked new learning, but more often than not, it was like a barnacle on her practice. She attended professional development sessions and took the handout back to the to-do tray…

This is an excerpt from "The State of Educators' Professional Learning in Alberta: Executive Summary" (Learning Forward, 2018), part of a series produced by Learning Forward. Coinciding with the 2016 Annual Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Learning Forward commissioned and supported a study of professional learning across the…

The educational landscape around standards, assessment, professional development, and funding is changing at a rapid pace. This article asks how can education institutions--and educators--respond with a balance of urgency and coherence? How can education institutions temper the need for risk-taking and innovation with the responsibility to deliver…

This article describes a project initiated to address the challenges of providing high-quality professional development to teachers in rural schools. Spread over the vast northwest corner of Colorado, where it takes over two hours to drive from one end of the region to the other, the Northwest Colorado Board of Cooperative Educational Services (NW…

Several research summaries over the last few years have brought attention to the impact that high-quality instructional materials have on student learning. The U.S. Department of Education's What Works Clearinghouse, which produces summaries of rigorous research, has identified a number of effective curricula with large effect sizes on students'…

K-12 education has witnessed a sea of change in attitudes about curriculum as a serious reform strategy. The movement gained traction in the wake of the Common Core State Standards, when newly created curriculum products emerged. While there are an increasing number of high-quality, content-rich curriculum products available, as well as venues to…

It's a story that is all too familiar. A school district has a majority of students reading below grade level. The district adopts a new English language arts curriculum anchored in complex texts and analytical writing tasks. As they began to teach with the new curriculum, teachers adapted materials in an effort to meet their students at their…

In 2016, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District in southern California began the process of adopting a new math curriculum. Teachers and community members were dissatisfied with the existing program because it wasn't meeting teachers' instructional needs or students' learning needs. Public dissatisfaction made it imperative to involve teachers…

While working with schools and districts across Canada, the authors have found there is a strong expectation that collaborative teams will improve student learning. Many districts also expect instructional coaches to be a part of these teams, although there is much confusion about what roles they should play within a team. Developing collective…

More than 60% of U.S. school children are being educated in states in which Next Generation Science Standards or other framework-derived standards have been adopted. This vision demands a central role for students to engage in science and engineering practices to build and use science ideas, rather than solely learning about the science others…

Research indicates that creating a psychologically safe school climate matters for adult learning in the same way it matters for children's learning. School leaders can help teachers feel safe to take risks, share differing opinions, and be vulnerable in front of peers before and during professional learning activities. An example of why…

In the process of choosing and designing professional learning, the needs of some students tend to get overlooked. Due to lack of federal legislation and requirements, gifted students are often forgotten by the educational system at large, and district professional development catalogs omit an ongoing understanding of this population. The needs of…