Collaborative Professional Learning

Develop a collaborative professional culture to support student-centered teaching and learning
About
Featured Strategies
Growth Areas
Additional Reading
How BetterLesson Can Help

About Collaborative Professional Learning

Topics:

  • Setting Up Flexible and Virtual PD
  • Collaborative Professional Learning Communities
  • Planning Actionable Learning
  • Data-Backed Instructional Planning

Overview:

When teachers have the opportunity to collaborate, they share learning practices and experiences, support one another in trying new strategies and teaching moves, partner in responding to student and classroom data, and work together to develop curriculum and implement new school initiatives. No matter whether their collaboration is formalized into a Professional Learning Community (PLC) around one specific area of growth or need, or if their collaboration is less formal, when teachers effectively work collaboratively, they receive continuous job-embedded learning and professional development from their colleagues that will lead to better results for their students, for their team, and for their school; as a result, their collective ability to help all students learn will increase.

What We Believe:

We believe that creating a culture of collaboration is a key practice in school success, and that there are actionable strategies and practices instructional leaders can use to successfully build and maintain a sustainable, collaborative community of educators.

We believe that collaborative professional development is most effective when teams of teachers meet regularly with clear and specific agendas to establish transparent, attainable goals around student achievement, and support one another in improving their classroom practice to ensure students meet those goals.

We believe that collaborative professional learning communities must regularly collect, review, and reflect on student-data in order to make informed decisions about how best to support students to achieve academic success.

We believe that professional learning needs to evolve to mirror the personalization, flexibility, and choice that we want for student learning. A key aspect of this shift is reimagining the times and spaces we can do professional learning, incorporating more asynchronous and virtual learning opportunities for teachers and leaders.

Featured Strategies

Change teaching and learning one step at a time using the BetterLesson coaching model
Change teaching and learning one step at a time using the BetterLesson coaching model
These three steps support Instructional Leaders to create more personalized and purposeful workshops for their teachers
These three steps support Instructional Leaders to create more personalized and purposeful workshops for their teachers
In a Professional Learning Community, many hands make light work
In a Professional Learning Community, many hands make light work

Growth Areas

BetterLesson growth areas are targeted goals for growth in a learning domain through BetterLesson Coaching. Learn more about BetterLesson Coaching.
I can create flexible and virtual learning experiences for teachers to promote growth.
I can design a collaborative and outcome driven learning space using principles of adult learning.
I can plan actionable professional development by creating meaningful shared learning spaces for teachers.
I can build data-backed instructional planning spaces in which teachers collaborately review student work, identify trends in data, and develop team goals.

Additional Reading

BetterLesson Blog Posts: 

External Resources: 

How BetterLesson Can Help

We provide personalized, continuous support to help teachers and instructional leaders make growth towards their professional goals.
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