The professional learning team at Learning Without Tears leads the design, development, facilitation, impact assessment, and progressive improvement of professional learning for thousands of educators, therapists, and other practitioners who use Learning Without Tears integrated solutions to build children's foundational early literacy skills. The…

Although there is a wealth of research about what works in schools for both teachers and leaders, it has been an ongoing challenge to ensure quality implementation of those practices. In this article, the evidence-based practices that the authors are concerned with relate to school leadership, not least of which involves the work that school…

A nationwide shortage of qualified special educators has led to a push for alternative ways to recruit and retain special educators, including apprenticeship and residency programs. This article describes a residency program in New Hampshire that provides housing to teachers who are working on their special education endorsements at a local…

Each year, educators engage in hours of professional learning to enhance their practice. Those hours are limited, both by contract and the imperative of keeping teachers in classrooms as much as possible. It is essential that this professional learning time is well-spent and pays dividends toward the goal of all public education: ensuring that…

When the staff at Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Educational Services (NKCES) discovered a new road to higher quality professional learning and better outcomes for students, they jumped on it and quickly decided they weren't going back. Three years ago Chief Academic Officer Melody Stacy and her colleagues learned about the Standards for…

Districts may have limited internal capacity to provide teachers with sustained, systemic professional learning that is relevant to every teacher due to a lack of funding, inadequate staffing, insufficient time, and competing demands. Educational service agencies, which work at the regional level to support multiple districts, can address those…

This article discusses a recent Australian study that examines the relationship between teachers' beliefs in inclusive education and their levels of teaching self-efficacy, which previous research finds is correlated with more effective teaching practices. Whereas inclusion in the United States usually refers to placing students with disabilities…

For coaches, access to classrooms isn't straightforward and is far from guaranteed. Access is a prerequisite for coaching, yet there are many barriers beyond a coach's control, making their job difficult to impossible. In this article, the authors detail how five administrative and structural forces shaped coaches' access to teachers' classrooms.…

Two years after the onset of the pandemic, COVID-19 continues to take a toll on educators' morale and well-being. The need to strengthen relationships between educators and students is growing. The MyTeachingPartner-Secondary (MTP-S) program, which is a strengths-based coaching program for middle and high school teachers, helps educators respond…

In 2016, the Louisiana Department of Education selected Learning Forward to design and facilitate a mentor teacher training program that provided expert teachers across the state with tools and skills to more effectively support teachers in their systems through their first three years of teaching. This three-year partnership was completed in…

About 1 in 20 K-12 students are suspended from school each year. Students from marginalized groups -- including Black and Latinx students and students with individualized education plans (IEPs) -- experience suspension much more frequently than their peers. Empathic Instruction reduces the racial gaps in suspensions, but it does not close them…

Research supports the contention that professional learning communities (PLCs) are a "path to change in the classroom" (DuFour, 1997). Teachers treading this path, however, can encounter obstacles or plateau as a result of five common challenges: incoherence, insularity, unequal participation, congeniality, and privacy. Fortunately,…

Teacher professional learning is often disjointed and not aligned with the curricula teachers use in daily instruction. This lack of preparation has led to fragmented approaches to teaching young students to read, in part because initiatives lose momentum, teachers modify the instruction beyond recognition, and programs are soon eclipsed by newer…

As awareness has grown about the harmful effects of exclusionary discipline, especially on the Black and Brown students who are disproportionately suspended and expelled, so, too, has interest in alternative approaches to discipline. Restorative practices focus on building or repairing relationships to address or preempt conflict. They are based…

Microcredentials create opportunities for continuing growth of all teachers based on specific needs. They provide ways for teachers to lead their own learning while allowing administrators to identify and address teachers' needs as well as the expertise teachers have to share with their colleagues. Microcredentials are different from traditional…