Why PROFESSIONAL LEARNING?

Most schools have adopted high-quality instructional materials, but very few teachers report having access to ongoing professional development that helps them use these resources effectively. Teachers must have deep familiarity with grade-level standards, their curriculum, practices for equitable teaching, and their students’ individual needs to provide engaging experiences. 

Our work with schools over the past decade has shown us that the time teachers get with one another- to learn, to plan, to share- has been one of the most critical levers for student achievement. Still, having time is not enough: it needs to be used to deepen content knowledge aligned to using Tier 1 curricula. 

That’s our specialty: 

• LE creates high-quality professional development materials, aligned to Tier 1 curriculum, that content leaders can use to strengthen teacher practice across teaching teams during their collaborative planning time.
• We also know that just having the materials isn’t enough, so we support by coaching schools through implementation of sustainable professional learning systems and the many choices they face daily that implicate collaborative planning.

SEE OUR RESULTS

Our Approach

Our approach focuses on developing leaders in four complementary domains: ELA and Math Content, Equity, Learning Systems, and Leadership & Culture.

1. ELA and Math Content: Leaders build their capacity to use high-quality curriculum to develop students’ ability to understand, think critically about, and respond to  grade-appropriate work. 

1. Equity: Leaders work toward key actions they should take to build an inclusive, culturally and linguistically responsive environment for both students and adults. Leaders learn to develop and maintain systems that focus on continuous learning around equity and using an equity lens when analyzing data, facilitating instruction, and developing systems.
2. Learning Systems:Leaders establish structures to create healthy and dynamic systems for transformative professional learning. Four key ideas drive deep and continuous learning and growth: building the conditions to enable success, analyzing data, setting goals, and planning and leading professional learning aligned to goals.
3. Leadership & Culture: Leaders build skills in self-awareness, community, and developing others in support of strong, collaborative team culture.

Content Leaders also have the potential to grow a school’s leadership pipeline. The Content Leader certification serves as a significant step towards principal certification.  

Services

Especially as schools face a challenging and new recovery process from the biggest global crisis in generations, schools will need to draw from deep instructional leadership to make effective and equitable decisions. Leading Educators will flexibly offer the following supports to ensure students learn even with these added challenges:

• In depth training over the course of a year to develop deep content knowledge, best practices for rigorous and equitable instruction, and build leadership
• Access to turn-key professional development sessions to deliver ongoing, curriculum-based professional development to teams of teachers
• Coaching to support implementation of professional development and support with completing Content Leader Certification