Most people associate summer with activities that have nothing to do with school, or, if they do, summer school comes to mind -- the remediation variety. Historically, summer school is for struggling students who need to relearn and firm up skills from prior years or for those required to retake a class. But what if it could be reimagined how to…

How does one overcome the challenges to finding time for meaningful professional learning? The authors asked seven experts in the field, and these practitioners offer powerful strategies for making better use of educator time. An example from Illinois centers student data in school systems as an essential component of a school's overall commitment…

Greece Central School District's longstanding new teacher induction model suddenly changed when the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close abruptly in March 2020. At a time when many districts dropped their new teacher induction plans amid chaos and confusion, Greece Central School District was able to rapidly transform the way they support…

Teacher professional learning is often disjointed and not aligned with the curricula teachers use in daily instruction. This lack of preparation has led to fragmented approaches to teaching young students to read, in part because initiatives lose momentum, teachers modify the instruction beyond recognition, and programs are soon eclipsed by newer…

In her essay "Homeplace," social activist and author bell hooks defines a homeplace as a space where Black people are able to "recover our wholeness" and "where we can be affirmed in our minds and hearts … where we could restore ourselves the dignity denied us on the outside in the public world" (hooks, 1990). As dean…

Coaching is an increasingly popular and promising method of professional learning, but unfortunately, many teachers do not have access to high-quality coaching due to geographic and financial constraints. Technology offers an opportunity to increase access to coaching, especially for educators in isolated rural areas. Research shows video is…

For over two decades, Giselle O. Martin-Kniep and her colleagues have worked for Learner-Centered Initiatives, a consulting organization based in New York, promoting best practices in curriculum, development, assessment, and leadership. A significant portion of their work is directed toward helping educators attend to and assess students' ability…

Principals who pay attention to their own learning serve as models for others. What principals do every day, how they view and value student and educator learning, how they organize their staff into learning communities, and the designs they support for those teams to learn make a significant difference in the learning of those they serve. In this…