Effectively supporting adult development on the front lines of schools is no easy task. In this article, the authors report on talks with education leaders about the most pressing challenges they face in supporting adult development in their schools and organizations. The leaders participated in a graduate course about supporting adult development…

Teachers and school leaders have been pressed to use data over the last few decades, and that pressure is increasing. Yet while data use has become a popular term among educators and politicians, evidence demonstrates that teachers and school leaders still struggle with making sense of data in the service of improved learning outcomes. To do this…

In the current, very complex, and even conflicted discourse about schools, one thing is clear: Schools need to be about student learning. Schools need to ensure that students are good readers, proficient writers, capable mathematicians, competent scientists, and knowledgeable historians. Students also need to learn to work together, be healthy, be…

Learning Forward's Standards for Professional Learning emphasize the needs and responsibilities of adults as learners. This is especially true for the Learning Designs standard, which states: "Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students integrates theories, research, and models of human…

The workshop is done--How does anyone know that staff learned what they needed to learn? How does anyone know that the content of the workshop day is now common knowledge among the attendees? Two key indicators are feedback and evaluation. Feedback from participants is what the presenter uses to fine-tune his or her professional learning delivery.…

For educators to be successful in ensuring that students are college-and career-ready, they must have high-quality professional learning. This article describes how the foundation and guidance for evaluating the impact of professional learning can be enhanced with the "Standards for Professional Learning Tool" (Learning Forward, 2011).…

Teacher leaders are vital to establishing a collaborative school culture that fosters continuous improvement of teaching and student achievement. Over the last seven years, Learning Forward's support of teacher leaders has focused more on teachers who support their colleagues by serving in one or more of many roles with one of many diverse job…

Formed in 2007, the Riverpoint Partnership for Math and Science is a group of Spokane K-12 and college administrators who came together to use their combined resources and knowledge to focus on improving student learning. With a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the group launched the Riverpoint Advanced Mathematics Partnership project…

Leadership by teachers is essential to serving the needs of students, schools, and the teaching profession. To that end, the Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium has developed Teacher Leader Model Standards to codify, promote, and support teacher leadership as a vehicle to transform schools for the needs of the 21st century. The Teacher…

Teachers are leaders when they function in professional learning communities to affect student learning, contribute to school improvement, inspire excellence in practice, and empower stakeholders to participate in educational improvement. From an equity perspective, teachers also lead when they serve as change agents who collaborate to use…

Throughout the past two decades, Boston Public Schools has seen strong, steady improvement, recently demonstrated through student gains on NAEP's Trial Urban District Assessment in math and recognized through the award of the 2006 Broad Prize for Urban Education. Teacher leaders have played an important role in Boston's improvement. As team…

Professional development as a term and as a strategy has run its course. The future of improvement, indeed of the profession itself, depends on a radical shift in how people conceive learning and the conditions under which teachers and students work. In this article, the author discusses five key ideas that together foreshadow his argument and…

When a university and a major urban district pair up, teachers learn more about science content and how to develop an inquiry-based classroom. More than 8,000 Detroit, Mich., students have felt the change--and show the results in improved science test scores.

Effective professional learning requires that staff developers thoughtfully plan to meet varying teacher needs and be responsive to differences--that they model the differentiation teachers will practice in the classroom. Staff developers must be mindful of participants' current learning needs and plan according to their readiness, interest, and…

The No Child Left Behind Act's requirements for scientifically based research and new accountability standards will affect how professional development leaders do their work. Meeting the new requirements means leaders must more carefully evaluate new programs of professional learning and assess the results. Evaluation must become a given, not an…