We’re very excited for the upcoming Learning Forward conference in Nashville. Please visit us in booth #419 to chat with the TeachBoost team, as well as a few of our partner schools, about our instructional leadership platform and personalized professional development tools.
After scouring the conference agenda, here are the sessions we’re most looking forward to this year:
Monday, December 8
9:15 a.m.-11:15 a.m.
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP COACHING THAT ACHIEVES RESULTS (B25)
Host: Mike Sherry, Paradigm Partners
Investigate an international case study to learn how effective coaching helped high school educational leaders build leadership capacity focused on school improvement. Consider the use of time-tested, user-friendly templates, tools, and references for implementing and evaluating this systematic, reflective, and collaborative process. Apply examples to your setting and take away frameworks and practical tools to help guide your practice and improve your effectiveness as a leader.
TRANSFORMING PROFESSIONAL LEARNING THROUGH ONLINE COLLABORATION COMMUNITIES (B39)
Hosts: Amy Baeder and Justin Baeder, Curriculum Study Groups; Jacqui Murray, St. Mary World International Baccalaureat School
Consider the power of online collaboration communities to boost your teaching team’s performance. Learn how to use Google+ to bring together grade-level teams or any educators interested in sharing their best instructional practices in an online community. Hear a master teacher share how her online community engages in learning. Apply what you’ve learned to create your own online collaboration groups to maximize professional development and benefit student learning.
LEAP YEAR: ASSESSING AND SUPPORTING EFFECTIVE FIRSTYEAR TEACHERS (B09)
Hosts: Michelle Mercado and Bailey Cato, The New Teacher Project
Gain insights from The New Teacher Project’s (TNTP) experience in implementing the Assessment of Classroom Effectiveness (ACE)—a multiple measure evaluation system used to determine the effectiveness of more than 1,000 firstyear teachers. Get an overview of the evaluation model, the data it is producing, and initial lessons learned. Understand the architecture of and rationale for the ACE, and consider how findings can inform support and retention of new teachers.
THE A-TEAM OF EVALUATIONS: ADMINISTRATORS-STAFF-UNION (B28)
Hosts: Central York School District leadership team
Learn how one district moved all stakeholders onto the same page to implement a collaborative and comprehensive evaluation process. Understand how the district ensured the success of this model by collaborating with administrators, staff, and the teachers’ union. Determine how you can create a similar program that will drive the effectiveness of your teachers and, ultimately, the outcomes of your students.
1:45 p.m.-2:45 p.m.
BUILDING A STRONGER PRINCIPALSHIP: CULTIVATING TALENT THROUGH A PRINCIPAL PIPELINE (TL03)
Host: MaryEllen Elia, Hillsborough County Public Schools
Policy Study Associates has published a set of reports describing results of The Wallace Foundation’s Principal Pipeline Initiative, a multi-year effort to improve school leadership in six urban school districts. Hear how the reports describe changes in the six districts’ practices to recruit, train, and support new principals. Share the key findings from one of the pipeline school districts and consider lessons for other districts considering changes to their own principal pipelines.
1:45 p.m.-3:45 p.m.
TEACHER SUPERVISION AND COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY (C37)
Hosts: Carole Schmidt and Ericka Harris, South Bend Community School Corporation
Learn how one urban school district is implementing collaborative inquiry and school improvement by linking principal and teacher performance to increased student achievement. See how to define evaluation based on growth and proficiency. Discover tools to support thinking collaboratively and leave with strategies that support a teacher evaluation process and structures that lead to an innovative school improvement model.
4:00 p.m.
TRANSFORMING INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP THROUGH TECH-ENABLED COACHING (PK10)
Host: Jeremy Vidito, Starr Detroit Academy
Learn how a charter school leveraged technology as a vehicle for advancing differentiated teacher development and instructional coaching. Hear about the high-impact shifts that occur when educators collaborate to address common challenges, and to provide support and feedback that speaks to their individual needs. Receive practical advice on sharing, scaling, and sustaining instructional practices that improve student outcomes.
NOTE: This is a FastForward session—a fast-paced, concise presentation, also variously known as PechaKucha, Ignite, or Byte. Presentations are 7 minutes with 15-18 slides. Stop in for some or all of the presentations starting at 4:00 p.m.. FastForward can be found in the Learning Hangout space outside the Exhibit Hall.
Tuesday, December 9
10:15 a.m.–11:15 a.m.
DEVELOPING INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP AT SCALE (TL06)
Hosts: Max Silverman and Josh Edelmanis
Intentional efforts to improve teacher effectiveness are taking hold across the country and, in the process, are changing the role of principals and central office leaders that support them. See how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the University of Washington Center for Educational Leadership have engaged with school districts and charter management organizations nationwide for the past three years. Understand high-leverage practices that can improve principal instructional leadership practice. Experience how central office leaders are dramatically changing the ways they support principals as instructional leaders.
1:45 p.m.–2:45 p.m.
BUILDING A COHERENT AND ALIGNED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM (TL07)
Host: Kathi Littmann
Kathi Littmann and a panel of educators leading the transformation of professional development, will discuss emerging trends and critical issues in the field. Learn why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the iPD Challenge, who the early winners were, and what lessons can be learned from them. Leave understanding how and why your school system should take the challenge.
Wednesday, December 10
8:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
WHAT COMES AFTER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: ONLINE COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE (I03)
Host: Ben Wilkoff, Denver Public Schools, Denver, CO
Learn how to create, cultivate, and engage teachers and leaders in online communities of practice. Discover how to use Google+ to ensure communities don’t contain only “lurkers,” or passive adult learners, but have active participants. Analyze great practice for engaging others within an online community of practice.
