inquirED's Approach to PD: Curriculum-Based Professional Learning

The Elements: Transforming Teaching through Curriculum-Based Professional Learning: "A new report by Carnegie Corporation of New York calls for transforming teaching and student learning by anchoring professional learning in high-quality curriculum materials."

Reform by the Book: What Is—or Might Be—the Role of Curriculum Materials in Teacher Learning and Instructional Reform? : "Curriculum materials could contribute to the development of professional practice if they were created with closer attention to the processes of curriculum enactment."

Effective Teacher Professional Development: "Strategies associated with specific curriculum content supports teacher learning within teachers’ classroom contexts."

Igniting the Learning Engine: "System leaders in each of our case studies prioritized teachers’ access to...comprehensive curricula and used it as a foundational element of Connected Professional Learning."

Organizing Schools for Improvement: "Schools in which student learning improves have coherent instructional guidance systems that articulate the what and how of instruction."

Curriculum Research: What We Know and Where We Need to Go: "Comprehensive, content-rich curriculum is a common feature of academically high-performing countries."

Choosing Blindly: Instructional Materials, Teacher Effectiveness, and the Common Core: "We can expect both theoretically and based on existing research that effective instructional materials either reduce the variability in performance across teachers, raise the overall performance level of the entire distribution of teachers, or both."

High-Quality Curricula and Team-Based Professional Learning: "This report explores the premise that there’s nothing more powerful than great teachers skillfully using great instructional materials to motivate and engage students in their learning."

Beyond PD: Teacher Professional Learning in High-Performing Systems: "In high performing systems...teachers and school leaders share responsibility not only for their own professional learning but the learning of other teachers."

Professional Learning Communities: An Ongoing Exploration: "Professional learning communities provide opportunities for professional staff to look deeply into the teaching and learning process and to learn how to become more effective in their work with students."

A review of research on the impact of professional learning communities: "Well-developed PLCs have positive impact on both teaching practice and student achievement."

Communities of Practice: Connecting What We Know with What We Do: "In a community of practice, shared learning centers around issues...that emerge from actual situations in authentic practice."

The Evolving Role of Instructional Coaches in U.S. Policy Contexts: "Engagement...around instructional reform must be built on good relationships, which is as much of an attribute of individual connections as it is of the broader organizational environment."

Taking Teacher Coaching To Scale: "In contrast to traditional PD, coaching is intended to be individualized, time-intensive, sustained over the course of a semester or year, context-specific, and focused on discrete skills.

What Makes Professional Development Effective? Results From a National Sample of Teachers: "Activities that are linked to teachers' other experiences, aligned with other reform efforts, and encouraging of professional communication among teachers appear to support change in teaching practice."

Instructional Coaching: Eight factors for realizing better classroom teaching: "Coaching requires a trusting relationship and sufficient time to provide the individualized professional learning that is most relevant to a teacher’s needs."