This study examined a differentiated, bottom-up approach to school improvement planning through exploration of the qualities that make up a highly effective school department team as it related to their ability to create and meet a student-centered, data driven high achievement goal. While there are a multitude of factors that affect the ability…

Purpose: A sense of collective free-thinking with tangible goals makes co-creation an enlightening experience. Yet despite the freedom and organic flow of the methodology, there remain barriers to deploying co-creation in the real-world context. The aim was to understand the barriers and solutions to co-creation, reflect on applying co-creation in…

Teacher educators have focused on designing learning environments 'for' rather than 'with' teacher candidates. However, a co-design collaboration with teacher candidates has been recently suggested as a critical feature for effective teacher education programs. In this study, a co-design team, including preservice science teachers (PSTs) as…

This qualitative study followed the work of 12 principals and their supervisors to understand the concept of joint work as consequential for principals' learning and practice development. Research questions centered on the principal supervisor and principal's key work tasks and the situational contexts in which they occurred. Findings revealed…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to seek descriptions from people included in, and excluded from, participating on transition teams for adolescents with intellectual disabilities entering adulthood in New Jersey. The theoretical framework included two theories to support this research. Faludi's Procedural Planning Theory…

Planning mathematics learning sequences as a team is becoming increasingly common in Australian primary schools and is often referred to as "team planning" or "collaborative planning." The purpose of this article is to illustrate how a multi-age Year 5 and 6 primary school teaching team, authors Scott, Rai and Kristyn, grappled…

Individualized education plans (IEPs) have the potential and responsibility of providing individuals with the highest level of learning opportunities. In this guide, discover the essential steps and vital understandings for team members to create student-centered IEPs. This book simplifies the IEP writing process and provides practical strategies…

Comprehensive school emergency management planning requires input and collaboration from multidisciplinary stakeholders that represent the whole school community. The involvement of those who are affected by and help carry out the school emergency operations plan (EOP) can help ensure buy-in and the quality of the plan, as well as build the…

Effective collaboration among family professional partnerships (FPPs) and work groups such as a multidisciplinary individualized education program (IEP) team has been identified as a critical characteristic in developing a specially designed program for students with a disability. Unfortunately, educators often do not feel prepared to interact and…

Kay Psencik, Frederick Brown, and Stephanie Hirsh explore how school leaders can apply a learning lens to achieve their ambitious goals for educators and students in "The Learning Principal," their new book for Learning Forward. Chapter 3, "Managing Change," details how leaders can create the conditions and learning…

School attendance is essential for academic success. Significant loss of learning time due to chronic absenteeism critically impacts academic attainment and places students at risk for school dropout and potentially negative lifelong effects on health, education, employment opportunities, and financial stability. To resolve chronic absenteeism, it…

We describe how a modified version of an emergency survival strategy led our team in addressing problems of practice identified in two second grade classrooms. We attended to the urgent needs of students by enacting the curriculum with integrity, doing what was most important and effective, while accommodating their classroom context (LeMahieu,…

Based on data collected in South Carolina from 2020-2022 through the Collective Leadership Initiative, we examined the collective leadership of six schools through cascading crises that resulted in extreme turbulence in many schools. Through an annual collective leadership survey, a collective teacher efficacy survey that we administered three…

We present a model for professional development of instructional faculty. Though initially conceived for accreditation compliance as a credentialing process for adjunct faculty, this project led to increases in participants' collaboration on lesson design, investment in curricular decisions, and adoption of active learning methods. In this paper,…

Improved pedagogical practice does not happen in a silo; it requires impetus. External influences and pressures and internal motivations are drivers for pedagogical change. Professional learning (PL) programs, in their multitude of forms, are key tools for affecting teacher change. In response to an increased focus on fostering students' reasoning…