Professional Learning

Professional Learning Communities, or PLCs, have become crucial in designing school-wide strategies dedicated to helping students achieve their potential. The resources included in this toolkit are intended to help you meet the challenges presented by today’s educational landscape through effective professional learning and development opportunities.

All Professional Learning toolkit files

A zip file containing all downloadable Professional Learning Toolkit resources

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What is a Professional Learning Community?

Teachers working collaboratively and holding themselves accountable for the results

	One-to-one is Going Wonderfully in Webster Central School District, New York Webster Central School District is using technology to help kids learn essential 21st Century skills so that they can be successful in the real world: showing perseverance, risk taking, collaboration, and the ability to think on their feet.
	It's All About Collaboration at Springfield Public Schools This urban Massachusetts district is raising test scores, improving college- and career-readiness, bridging the equity divide, and changing the culture with help from its 1:1 laptop initiative.
	Professional Development Wins the Day in Baldwin County, AL Coaching, teacher academies, annual conferences, online classes and other forms of professional learning are keys to the success of this district’s 1:1 Chromebook initiative.
	BYOD + District-Provided Devices = A Winning Solution in Wake County In this large NC district, the goal wasn’t 1:1 – it was offering students multiple ways to learn, collaboratively, with help from the technology of their choosing.
	The Keys to One-to-One Success in East Noble, Indiana Five years into a successful initiative, this Project RED Signature District serves as a positive example to others.
	Adopt, Adapt and Improve: Metro Nashville Public Schools Redefines School Libraries Tennessee's Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools is blazing trails in innovative library and media center design to bring true 21^st Century literacy to 83,000 students in more than 150 schools.
	Lessons Learned from a Decade of One-to-One Next-generation Windows devices, wireless display, and Microsoft apps are some of the new tools that are helping New Jersey’s River Dell Regional School District get better at what they were already excelling at: empowering and inspiring learners.
	Preparing 21st Century Thinkers with Fujitsu 2-in-1 Ultrabooks Partner Success Story: Read about how the Fujitsu Lifebook T935 Convertible Tablet PC Ultrabook is empowering teachers and students at St. Thomas More Catholic High School to transform the educational environment.
	Producing Next-Generation Learners in Grapevine, Texas With an investment in Windows 10 laptops for middle school students and tools such as Minecraft EDU, Grapevine-Colleyille ISD is creating a robust and educational 1:1 environment.
	1:1 in Lynnwood, WA, Improves Collaboration, Engagement, and Equity Edmonds School District has built quickly from two small pilots to a full 1:1 program using Intel-based Chromebooks in grades 3-12. Learn why they’re happy they did.

	My Students Need More Sleep. And So Do I. With the omnipresence of screens, we’re getting less sleep. While it's easy to direct teens to turn off their devices and get more sleep, are we taking our own advice?	Blog
	Invention versus Innovation: What Does it Mean for Education? Inventing can fill a need, a void, or be an effective strategy for desired results. Innovating? Not so much.	Blog
	We Can Get It Right! We now have data to show how meaningfully integrated technology has facilitated learner growth. But we can do more to ensure that everyone understands this data.	Blog
	An Updated Version of Now Changing what students experience can be a formidable challenge. It means having a vision of what you want to create and a direction for where you want to go.	Blog
	Moving Pictures: Maximize Your Storytelling By thinking of your learning presentation as a mini-movie, you could greatly improve the learning experience.	Blog
	Using Visual Models to Spark Mathematical Discussion When I reviewed my students’ work, I noticed that only one drew a picture of their solution strategy. The rest lacked a visual context for making sense of the problem.	Blog
	On the Education Horizon: Quirky Programmable Objects A look at some of the more interesting bots and programmable objects from the recent TCEA confernce.	Blog
	Top Science Education Take-Aways from NSTA18 The National Science Teachers’ Association (NSTA) Annual Conference was an enormous success this year. Here are my main takeaways.	Blog
	New Professional Learning Case Studies from ERS ERS studied school systems with improving student outcomes to learn these best practices for teacher professional learning.	Publication
	3 Tips to Create More Exciting Professional Development At the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) Convention and Exposition, Steve Dembo demonstrated how to “de-zombify” professional development.	News

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Professional Learning

All Professional Learning toolkit files

What is a Professional Learning Community?

The Changing Role of Teachers

Components of a Successful PLC

Developing a Professional Learning Community

Building Leadership

Implement Effective Professional Learning Communities

PLC Peer Observation

Mentoring and PLCs

PLC Teams

How PLCs Impact Student Success

The School District as a PLC

Developing a Learning Community

Learning Communities and Support

Building Leader Educator Capacity

Teacher and Leader Capacity

Seven Lessons Learned From Implementing Micro-credentials

Micro-Credentials and Professional Learning

State Digital Learning Exemplars

Social Network Formation and its Impact on Learning

Implementation Stories: Rhode Island

The Digital Learning Transition MOOC for Educators

Five Tips For First-rate PD

Rethinking Professional Learning and Assessment

Content-Focused, Expert-Led Collaboration at Achievement First

Drafting an Effective Professional Learning Plan

Finding Time for Collaborative Planning

Frequent, Growth-Oriented Feedback at DC Public Schools

Comprehensive Curricula and Assessments in Louisiana

Modeling Student-Centered Professional Learning

Supporting Teachers with Design Thinking

Google Classroom for Professional Learning

Get Cross-functional with Teacher Proficiency

Building the Next Generation of Teacher Training

Four Elements of Personalized Professional Learning

Building Teacher Autonomy

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