Educators have many "meetings of the minds": Grade-level planning sessions, PLCs, coaching meetings--which together should allow teachers ample opportunities to create high-quality, rigorous lesson plans that deepen student learning. But do these meetings actually work? Frequent planning sessions often become a time for teachers to…

Students not only vary in their skill level and preferences for academic content, but also in their social-emotional skills, development, and learning. This diversity in the classroom can pose instructional challenges, but it can be also an asset. It presents the opportunity for students to learn from and with one another, gain an understanding of…

Innovative teaching means the teacher is the creator, but unfortunately it does not necessarily mean the same for the students. Innovation is not just "doing" something new; it is "thinking" of new ways to improve a product, a method, or an idea. How can educators teach students to become better innovators themselves? This…

In small rural schools, despite the nourishing sense of community, there is the constant danger of professional isolation. Without enough colleagues for a typically structured PLC, teachers have plenty of community but not enough structured professional learning. With the NW RISE network, however, rural educators are connecting with…

Whether a teacher loves it or dreads it, lesson planning is a crucial step in the teaching process. Done effectively, collaborative lesson planning--in which teachers work together to design lessons--leads to increased professional learning, higher job satisfaction for teachers, and better lesson plans. The process poses challenges for both…

Why does professional learning for educators have such a mixed history? Why is it so hard to find solid research evidence of professional development programs that actually improve student learning outcomes? Part of the answer, writes Thomas R. Guskey, is that professional learning experiences for educators are rarely well planned. Consequently,…

In 2008-09, Colegio Ingles had a watershed year in terms of teachers learning to enhance one another's skills. Beneath a deceptively congenial surface, teachers at this Mexican preK-9th grade school were avoiding professional confrontations and rarely observed one another's classes or shared teaching solutions and innovations. That same year, the…

Lesson study requires teachers to discuss the essential concepts that the students need to learn, compare the concepts with curriculums and consider the present knowledge of students. The various examples and experiences of teachers performing lesson study are presented.

Now that regular elementary classroom teachers must plan their lessons around special "pull-out" programs, their responsibilities are compounded and their control over instructional time considerably diminished. This article discusses the benefits of parallel block scheduling as a possible solution. Includes seven endnotes. (MLH)

Widespread dissatisfaction caused a Nevada district to reexamine and revamp its teacher-evaluation process. The new system, which assumes teacher participation in goal setting helps teachers become self-reflective practitioners capable of adjusting their practices, has four domains: planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, and…