This article describes an instructional coaching program that includes high-quality data displays to engage teachers in conversation about instruction. A descriptive, nonjudgmental data display that captures a teacher's practice around an identified focus provides the foundation for a productive collaborative coaching conversation. The data…

Coaching is a way to support teachers in assessing and improving their practice. By engaging in rich, rigorous, and reflective professional conversations with colleagues, teachers can continue to develop and grow as they construct meaning, reinvest their cognitive resources, and apply new learning. Calibrating conversations are a way to foster…

Engaging educators in learning communities to apply a cycle of continuous improvement is not easy. Schedules, levels of expertise, and district initiatives can easily derail a campus professional learning plan, but Alyssa Toomes was concerned that professional learning experiences would become just another chore to check off teachers' to-do lists.…

Every teacher knows that exposure to new information is one small part in the teaching and learning process. Before students truly learn a concept, they must actively engage with material--discussing, sharing, seeing, and practicing it--to make it their own. In other words, they need to "connect" with concepts and have opportunities to apply them…

A Colorado district develops a two-year program that gives teacher teams an opportunity to learn how to use digital tools in the classroom. Called the Digital Learning Collaborative, it is built on three things about professional learning: (1) Learning takes time; (2) Learning is a social process; and (3) Learning about technology should be…