Many school leaders are committed to providing coaching to teachers, but coaching doesn't come together in their school because they haven't taken time to communicate a clear definition of coaching to the school and, especially, set up a clear structure for a coaching program. Aguilar, an education consultant and respected author on coaching,…

For two decades, researchers at the University of Kansas have conducted studies to better define, validate, and increase the effectiveness and efficiency of instructional coaches. The result of all this work is the impact cycle (Knight, 2018), a model coaches can use with teachers to help them masterfully create positive classrooms. The impact…

In this article, the author reflects on the support that novice teachers may need when preparing lesson plans. Showing that support makes a difference, three groups of teachers (one with access to lessons plans along with assistance from an online learning community; one with model plans but just online access; and one writing their own lesson…

It must have seemed simple to the framers of No Child Left Behind. For years, they had poured more and more money into federal programs for schools, yet reading performance had not improved. It appeared that the money had gone down a rat hole, and Congress was ready to hold schools accountable. It was time to get tough. Unfortunately, the…

"It's always been a promising time for teacher leadership. It's just never been a successful time," writes noted educator Roland Barth. Why? Barth points to five obstacles: administrator resistance, the taboo in teaching against elevating oneself higher than one's peers, the fact that teachers' plates are full, the…

Reviewing the research, Feiman-Nemser identifies distinct shifts in thinking about teacher induction over the last 50 years. Early advocates viewed induction as a temporary bridge designed to provide support to beginning teachers and ease their entry into teaching. Next came an induction model that combines support with ongoing mentoring and…

Since 2002, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills has been the leading advocacy organization in the United States focused on infusing 21st century skills into education. Its "Framework for 21st Century Learning," the result of a consensus among hundreds of stakeholders, describes the skills, knowledge, and expertise students need to…

In this wide-ranging interview with Educational Leadership, Stanford University Professor of Education Linda Darling-Hammond discusses the kind of preparation and support new teachers need to survive their critical first years in the classroom. Among her central recommendations are more intensive mentoring that lasts through the first year of…

New technology-enabled assessments offer the potential to understand more than just whether a student answered a test question right or wrong. Using multiple forms of media that enable both visual and graphical representations, these assessments present complex, multistep problems for students to solve and collect detailed information about an…

Describes a project to help teachers and administrators identify challenging goals for professional development. Activities that help to heighten awareness include breaking routine, changing perspective, examining assumptions, and reading challenging material. Two important ingredients for the professional development process are time and…

Author describes a design which seeks to formulate curriculum into discrete but interactive spheres. (Author/CB)

The Cognitive Levels Matching Project trains teachers to guide students' skill acquisition and problem-solving processes by assessing students' cognitive levels and adapting their teaching materials accordingly. (MLF)

A model for change is currently being tested in a collaborative effort between a national research center and a large school district: the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education at the University of Texas at Austin and the Jefferson County, Colorado, Public School District. (Author/MLF)