Help your PLC+ group to work "wiser," not harder. This practical guide to planning and implementing PLC+ groups in a collaborative setting is designed to equip professional learning community teams with the tools they need to work effectively toward improving student learning. Designed as an accompanying resource to "PLC+: Better…

Discover how Lesson Study benefits both students and teachers. Unlike scripted curricula that strip teachers of professional decisionmaking, Lesson Study values teachers by expecting them to be agents of improvement in their own classrooms. This resource empowers readers to oppose reform efforts that minimize teacher agency by offering an…

Guiding student growth minute-by-minute--aka classroom formative assessment--has a track record of boosting student and teacher engagement. Discover concrete ways leaders can support this high-impact instructional practice throughout your school or district. Learn: (1) how to clarify who owns the learning and who is responsible for the learning…

"The Art of Coaching Teams" is the manual you never received when you signed on to lead a team. Being a great teacher is one thing, but leading a team, or team development, is an entirely different dynamic. Your successes are public, but so are your failures--and there is no specific rubric or curriculum to give you direction. Team…

To address the professional development needs of learning community instructors at Kingsborough Community College, faculty coordinators and program directors developed a workbook for instructional teams. This workbook walks instructors through the collaborative process of creating and sustaining successful links and focuses on what we believe is…

States and technical assistance centers have asked the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) for guidance on establishing and maintaining a peer learning community (PLC). This document is designed to delineate the steps to establish and sustain a Peer Learning Community (PLC). It begins with a definition of a PLC and then presents…

In 15 years of working together, the authors have learned valuable lessons about practice change though partnership. One of the most important was their ability to discover shared values and interests. For years, their commonality was masked by different vocabulary and unique identities; they lacked the relationships needed to actively engage with…

Good assessment is part of all good learning communities, and this article provides a useful set of best practices for learning community assessment planning: (1) articulating agreed-upon learning community program goals; (2) identifying the purpose of assessment (e.g., summative or formative); (3) employing qualitative and quantitative assessment…

This report illustrates how four high-performing systems--British Columbia (Canada), Hong Kong, Shanghai (China) and Singapore--developed their teacher professional learning. The report and accompanying materials are designed as a resource for teachers, school leaders and policymakers wanting to improve teacher professional learning in their…

The changing demands of the 21st century--and the students growing up in it--are generating fundamental challenges to historical assumptions about what education looks like. The challenge today is to provide a deeper level of personalized learning to each and every student so that all can achieve mastery of the Common Core standards and other…

UNESCO established the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) to encourage the development of learning cities. By providing technical support, capacity development, and a platform where members can share ideas on policies and best practice, this international exchange network helps urban communities create thriving learning cities. The…

A career academy is a small learning community within a high school, which selects a subset of students and teachers for a two-, three-, or four-year period. Students enter through a voluntary process; they must apply and be accepted, with parental knowledge and support. A career academy involves teachers from different subjects working together…

In order to assess how completely a Small Learning Community (SLC) and/or Career Academy is implemented in any given site, and to connect the degree of implementation with the amount of improvement in student performance, two kinds of information are needed. The first is information on the quality of implementation, which can be collected by…

Communities of Practice offer state agency personnel a promising approach for engaging stakeholder groups in collaboratively solving complex and, often, persistent problems in special education. Communities of Practice can help state agency personnel drive strategy, solve problems, promote the spread of best practices, develop members'…

Looking collaboratively at student and teacher work is a process in which teachers primarily, but also administrators, parents, students, and members of the community, look at student and/or teacher work with the goal of improving student learning. To structure the process and create a safe, caring environment, teachers use a protocol to…