Learning Forward's PD Watch
Learning Forward is the nation’s largest nonprofit membership association focused solely on ensuring success for all students through effective professional learning and school improvement. It advocates for every educator having access to professional learning that is results-driven, standard-based, and job-embedded. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: professional development.
Education
Opinion
Lessons from Workforce Learning Leaders
Carol Francois' first blog post in a series exploring the changing nature of work, the changing nature of learning, and the skills and competencies required for learning leaders today.
Education
Opinion
Knowledge and Skills Drive Effective Collaboration
For groups to realize all of the benefits possible through collaboration, the people in those groups need to develop the knowledge and skills that support effective teamwork.
Education
Opinion
Four Ways to Improve Team Learning
Learn four processes that focus team interactions and connect team learning with student learning.
Education
Opinion
Raise Expectations and Support for Collaboration Time
Schools and school systems must provide the leadership, conditions, and resources that facilitate the ongoing development of social capital, and achieving this vision will take skillful collaboration.
Education
Opinion
Are Your Systems Adapting Interdependently, or Just in Parts?
The purpose of any single part of an education system is realized only when those components are interconnected to achieve the vision of college- and career-readiness for every student.
Education
Opinion
Six 'E' Words Essential to Student Success
Learning Forward's vision, our E6 statement, must become reality, defining education practice in every school system.
Education
Opinion
We Can't Give Teachers Time for Learning, or Can We?
Stephanie Hirsh rebuffs the two most-cited reasons schools are not able to give educators professional learning time during their regular work schedules.
Education
Opinion
It's Time to Create School Systems that Learn
Paul B. Ash, superintendent of Lexington (Mass.) Public Schools, explains what it means to be a school system that learns.
Education
Opinion
Oh, the Places Teachers Will Go
Discover how the Leadership standard encourages teachers to design roadmaps for their own learning and leading.
Education
Opinion
Getting Serious About Evaluating Professional Development
Bryant Gillis, a middle school principal serving on the Kentucky Task Force for Professional Learning, discusses the importance of changing from a culture of professional development to a culture of professional learning, especially when combined with the introduction and deconstruction of the Common Core State Standards.
Education
Opinion
Want Common Core to Succeed? Don't Forget the Principal!
During the last few months, Frederick Brown has noticed a common theme emerging as he engages with school principals from New York to Arizona: Principals are feeling overwhelmed and under-supported as they prepare for Common Core implementation.
Education
Opinion
Collaboration Strikes Again -- Or Are Schools Striking Collaboration?
A new report from the National Center for Literacy Education found that teachers value learning collaboratively with their peers but have insufficient time built into their workdays to do so.
Education
Opinion
Words that Fail Professional Learning
In the field of professional learning, there are words that hold us back. Language has power. Language is an indicator of a person's mental models, the theories or assumptions a person holds that drive his or her thoughts, words, and actions. Too many mental models about professional learning are inadequate to promote the changes in beliefs and practices necessary to achieve equity in education for every student. These inadequate mental models emerge in the design and execution of professional learning plans for Common Core implementation.
Education
Opinion
A Spirit of Problem Solving Leads The Way To a Future Full of Possibilities
Many educators who have seen initiatives come and go are wondering why there is always another innovation on the horizon. The answer is that, in education, we still have a huge job left undone. Students are not leaving high school ready for careers or college, and professional learning is not adequately supporting enough educators to reach all students.