How might the work of professional learning communities (PLCs) focus on the changes necessary to ensure that "all" students are engaged, inspired, and successful? The authors of this article developed five discussion questions that they believe allow educator teams to put equity front and center in their collaborative conversations…

What makes a powerful and results-driven Professional Learning Community (PLC)? The answer is collaborative work that expands the emphasis on student learning and leverages individual teacher efficacy into collective teacher efficacy. "PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design" calls for strong and effective PLCs…

Help your PLC+ group to work "wiser," not harder. This practical guide to planning and implementing PLC+ groups in a collaborative setting is designed to equip professional learning community teams with the tools they need to work effectively toward improving student learning. Designed as an accompanying resource to "PLC+: Better…

"Your Students, My Students, Our Students" explores the hard truths of current special education practice and outlines five essential disruptions to the status quo. Authors Lee Ann Jung, Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Julie Kroener show you how to: (1) Establish a school culture that champions equity and inclusion; (2) Rethink the…

Teachers in today's classrooms struggle every day to design instructional interventions that would build students' reading skills and strategies in order to ensure their comprehension of complex texts. Text complexity can be determined in both qualitative and quantitative ways. In this article, the authors describe various innovative…

Chula Vista Elementary School District, the largest in California, dramatically raised its student achievement while taking on increasing proportions of English learners by focusing on what it calls teacher talk--the way lessons are developed, delivered, and executed.

A study of 25 expert teachers and their shared reading lessons in grades 3-8 suggests that teachers focus their modeling during shared reading in four categories: comprehension, vocabulary, text structures, and text features. (Contains 1 figure.)

This article describes the significant gains in student achievement in an urban elementary school when teachers worked together to develop, administer, and review assessment items. In grade-level teams, teachers completed item analyses and engaged in instructional conversations about students' needed instruction. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Collaboration has been considered one of the key features of a successful school. However, the literature does not provide many examples of schools becoming more collaborative. This study focuses on the construction of a collaborative community among elementary school teachers in a large, public, urban school over several years. The researchers…

Focuses on the use of music as instructional material in early literacy instruction. Uses specific examples of music to highlight concepts of print, a sense of story and sequence, phonemic awareness and phonics, background knowledge and vocabulary, basic spelling patterns, and early writing activities. Concludes with an invitation for…

To improve literacy achievement, the authors developed consensus scoring and peer planning as a process of professional development and school improvement. This process allows teachers to (1) gain an increased understanding of the content and performance standards that guide their instruction; (2) work together to assess student work; (3) work…

The call for curriculum integration "with" and "through" the arts is evident within many elementary school environments. Arts specialists are frequently asked to link their classroom curriculum to other content area instructional goals and standards. Furthermore, fully one third of national, state and local content standards in the arts (music,…

This issue brief was developed as part of the Consortium on Inclusive Schooling Practices' framework for standards-based systemic reform. The brief focuses on one of the six major policy areas identified by the Consortium, professional development. It first discusses the concept of teachers as lifelong learners, then explores professional…

Over a two-year period, the teachers at John Adams Middle School wrote and administered eight common assessments across content areas and met to discuss the results of each. By linking standards, assessments, and instruction, teachers were able to identify areas of need for specific students and address those needs. Educators across the country…

The experiences of three students (elementary, middle school, and high-school students) with significant disabilities who had been members of an urban general education classrooms for at least 3 years are described. Students were provided with accommodations and modifications, however, there was a lack of connection between Individualized…