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.

What is a Professional Learning Community?

Teachers working collaboratively and holding themselves accountable for the results

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The Changing Role of Teachers

New tasks and challenges call for developing new abilities and setting aside old habits

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Components of a Successful PLC

A comprehensive checklist that details what all thriving Professional Learning Communities have in common

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Developing a Professional Learning Community

How principals can convince their staff that implementing a Professional Learning Community is worthwhile

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Building Leadership

The role of the principal is critical in creating a school-wide environment of collaboration

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Implement Effective Professional Learning Communities

A checklist for principals in creating a culture of continuous learning for their schools

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PLC Peer Observation

Structured peer observations help teachers improve learning for all students

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Mentoring and PLCs

Professional Learning Communities can act as dynamic support systems for teachers

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PLC Teams

Utilize existing team structures and focus on what effective teams do to help all kids learn

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How PLCs Impact Student Success

A PLC gets teachers working together as members of a high-performing, collaborative team  

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The School District as a PLC

The PLC concept can extend beyond teachers and schools when district leaders become emphatic about district-wide learning goals

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Developing a Learning Community

This resource from Microsoft* offers simple steps on launching enriching Learning Communities.

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Learning Communities and Support

This Microsoft* resource offers ‘anytime, anywhere’ approaches to K-12 learning and explores new technology for transforming learning outcomes.

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Building Leader Educator Capacity

This Microsoft* Education Transformation Framework helps fast track system-wide transformation by summarizing decades of quality research.

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Teacher and Leader Capacity

This Microsoft* resource shares research revealing that top schools place an intensive focus on training, mentoring and collaborative working groups.

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Seven Lessons Learned From Implementing Micro-credentials

This Friday Institute for Educational Innovation resource explores opportunities for educators to engage in rigorous professional learning.

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Micro-Credentials and Professional Learning

Micro-credentials create new pathways for professional development: making learning more relevant to a teacher’s needs.  

 

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State Digital Learning Exemplars

This Friday Institute for Educational Innovation resource examines how states are providing digital learning opportunities. 

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Social Network Formation and its Impact on Learning

Written for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation MOOC Research Initiative, this report explores peer interaction in MOOCs for K-12 educators.

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Implementation Stories: Rhode Island

This resource chronicles the experiences of Rhode Island school leaders with the Leadership in Blended and Digital Learning (LBDL) program.

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The Digital Learning Transition MOOC for Educators

The Alliance and the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation offers lessons learned about new approaches to professional development.

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Five Tips For First-rate PD

From specificity to inclusivity, these five tips help simplify and energize the professional learning process.

 

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Rethinking Professional Learning and Assessment

Teacher-created assessments that have students applying skills to meaningful tasks directly connects assessments to curriculum.

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Content-Focused, Expert-Led Collaboration at Achievement First

This ERS brief explores how Achievement First ignites the engine of professional learning. 

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Drafting an Effective Professional Learning Plan

Drafting a professional learning plan is a critical step in setting teachers up for success.

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Finding Time for Collaborative Planning

In this brief, ERS shares practical strategies for how principals can create more collaborative planning time.  

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Frequent, Growth-Oriented Feedback at DC Public Schools

This ERS brief details how DC Public Schools connects professional learning to day-to-day instruction. 

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Comprehensive Curricula and Assessments in Louisiana

In this brief, ERS shares how the Louisiana Department of Education is improving teacher learning.

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Modeling Student-Centered Professional Learning

Professional learning should be teacher-centered: allowing educators to experience student-centered learning strategies in action.

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Supporting Teachers with Design Thinking

Design Thinking can take root in a teacher’s pedagogy, laying the foundation for students to become independent learners. 

 

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Google Classroom for Professional Learning

With Google Classroom, educators from different schools are brought together through profound professional development experiences. 

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Get Cross-functional with Teacher Proficiency

The intersection of support from leadership, peer coaching, and measurable outcomes provide a collaborative forum for teachers.

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Building the Next Generation of Teacher Training

Professional learning needs an inquiry process that encourages and supports educators as they engage in the impact of their development. 

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Four Elements of Personalized Professional Learning

The Future Ready Schools framework for personalized professional learning is poised to meet the needs of today’s schools.   

 

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Building Teacher Autonomy

Establishing a culture of continuous improvement provides the structure teachers need to become empowered and to help students to be successful. 

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Teamwork Takes This Texas District’s 1:1 Program to the Next Level

It’s been several years since we first profiled Klein ISD’s one-to-one program. In this update we look at what’s happened over eight years in this pioneering district.
BYO, Chromebooks and Innovative Learning in Southeast Texas

A robust wireless infrastructure, Google Apps for Education, student-owned devices, and Acer Chromebooks are the perfect backdrop for innovative classroom learning in Dayton ISD.
A 1:1 Inquiry-Based High School Shares Its Vision

Thanks to a new partnership with Dell, Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy will be rolling out Chromebooks to all of its students and teachers as a tool to allow inquiry-driven, project-based learning to happen, and serve as a model for other schools in the country. 
Community Support and Personalized Learning in Clear Creek ISD

Clear Creek Independent School District (CCISD) in Texas began its 1:1 initiative in a thoughtful and careful manner, by involving community members in the planning process, investing heavily in professional learning, and gradually phasing in devices across the district.

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New Professional Learning Case Studies from ERS

ERS studied school systems with improving student outcomes to learn these best practices for teacher professional learning. 
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Teachers Walking Together
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. 
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Role-Playing Game Helps Teachers Solve Complex Challenges

By working together through a process known as foresight gaming, or 21st century strategy simulation, educators can find creative answers to complex problems.
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Pushing Beyond Future-Ready: Creating a Bold Context for K-12 Libraries

Rethinking the school library means being bold and thinking in disruptive directions. The question is: in what direction? David Jakes gives you four ways to jumpstart your thinking.
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Class Using Digital Tools
Transform Teaching with the New SHI Digital Transformation Toolkit

The new Digital Transformation Toolkit —sponsored by SHI—provides vital information on the essential components of digital transformation in today’s schools and districts.
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Not the Same Old Story: Tech and Text Work Better Together

Just as deeper reading creates better writers, this skill helps students to break down narrative as media consumers so that they may become more skillful creators.
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Teen Literacies Toolkit
YALSA's Teen Literacies Toolkit

YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association) has just released its Teen Literacies Toolkit to help teens make sense of their digital world.   
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Product vs. Process?

A key element of school improvement is that learning should be more authentic. But is this a perspective that should be rethought?
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Standing in Line

Being innovative means different things to different people. David Jakes explains why process without product isn't innovative.
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Systemic Maturity Required

The "real work" when implementing technology is about engaging the entire system in creating new realities that best serve learners, communities and economies.
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The K-12 Blueprint: Produced by Clarity Innovations

Clarity Innovations matches the most promising technology with the evolving needs of education. By merging creativity, technology, and pedagogy, we create powerful learning experiences. Learn More