Learning Forward supports you in all aspects of planning, design, and implementation of high-quality professional learning.
Our learning designs and approaches to professional learning services are customized to align to your district’s strategic plan, improvement goals, timeline, and scheduling preferences.
What Sets Us Apart
Four additional aspects of our approach set us apart from other providers:
1
Every program we design and facilitate is deeply rooted in, and models implementation of, the Standards for Professional Learning.
As the creators and holders of the Standards for Professional Learning, no organization is more familiar with the standards than Learning Forward. We are responsible for periodically convening an industry-wide group of experts who review a specially commissioned meta-analysis of recent research on professional learning. Based on this meta-analysis, the standards group performs the knowledge-brokering function of diving deeply into the meta-analysis findings to glean their application to real-world educational challenges. Working collaboratively with Learning Forward staff, they streamline the research findings into the Standards for Professional Learning. The strong research foundation of the standards ensures that professional learning efforts aligned to the standards are the most current research and evidence-based best practices.
2
We take a strengths-based approach to our partnerships.
We help districts leverage existing successes and investments by supporting the refinement and expansion of existing professional learning structures and practices rather than trying to impose a new model or approach.
3
We meet districts where they are, customizing learning programs to provide a level of support that best recognizes in-district expertise while supporting the deepening of understanding and improvement.
During our early conversations, district leaders and Learning Forward representatives will determine the appropriate level of support to foster success, whether that means leading the work, collaborating with district leaders to design and facilitate learning, or “coaching into” district leaders thinking during planning and assessment of professional learning.
4
We believe that it is through high-quality professional learning that all leaders and all systems learn their own way to improve outcomes.
With this belief in mind, our goal from the start of a service contract is to build the internal capacity of a district to sustain improvement by advancing leaders’ understanding of how to design and lead high-quality professional learning systems.
What others are saying
"Working with Learning Forward completely reshaped the way we design and deliver professional learning. Their consultants took the time to understand our needs, priorities, and context and guided us in creating strategies that genuinely support educator growth. The process was collaborative, research-based, and practical. As a result, we have stronger alignment across our learning initiatives, clearer goals for professional growth, and measurable improvements in educator practice. Learning Forward helped us build the capacity to continue this work effectively on our own."
— Professional Learning Director, Learning Forward Consulting Partner
Customized support
Below are some of the designed-for-you services we are frequently asked to lead:
Differentiated learning for new and experienced instructional coaches to support their understanding of the dispositions, conversational skills, and actions of instructional coaches. Grounded in the belief that coaches partner with teachers to support improved initial instruction, Coaches Academy supports coaches’ understanding of the coaching cycle with data-based goal setting and effective modeling and co-teaching. Coaches focus on development of intentionality in planning instruction, responsiveness to student needs during instruction, and use of data to plan immediate interventions. Experienced coaches are taught to deepen conversations to safely question a teacher’s assumptions and beliefs about perceived barriers and students’ abilities.
The key to recruiting and keeping high-quality talent is to ensure that they see their future path in your district. We can help you develop a model that not only recruits the best teachers available in a tight market, but ensures they see a future path for their growth, whether they see that path as leading while staying in the classroom or moving into campus or district administration.
Professional learning that ensures mentor teachers are prepared to help novice teachers ground themselves in personal cycles of continuous learning. When novice teachers are welcomed into a partnership focused on both parties learning to better meet the needs of those they serve, novice educators experience high-quality professional learning from day one of their careers. Leaders come to understand that time and effort spent on high-quality mentoring is a way to shift culture towards an ever deepening and self-sustaining learning system.
Learning Forward offers one-on-one leadership coaching for principals, assistant principals, and aspiring principals to deepen their understanding of leading learning-focused schools. The coaching covers essential areas including creating systems for professional learning that improve educator practice and student outcomes, exploring personal beliefs around equity, implementing change processes, and developing a Theory of Change tied to continuous improvement cycles. Coaches work with leaders on aligning curriculum with assessment and instructional materials, maximizing resources, establishing shared leadership, and addressing critical issues of school culture and collective responsibility for learning.
Learning Forward helps educational systems develop comprehensive professional learning plans that establish a systemwide vision for adult learning and connect it to equitable student outcomes. We guide districts through developing and implementing customized five-year comprehensive plans that facilitate individual, school-wide, and district-wide improvements aimed at increasing student achievement. Whether establishing new plans, revising existing ones, or implementing current strategies, we provide customized support to ensure professional learning efforts align with district goals and result in meaningful changes to teaching practice and student outcomes.
With an approach to professional learning teams that stresses not only data analysis, but learning new ways of meeting identified student needs, our Learning Team approach develops educators’ ability to lead their own collaborative learning.
Professional learning to foster a shared understanding of The Standards for Professional Learning, the meaning of “high-quality professional learning,” and an acceptance of shared responsibility for learning and improvement across campus and district leadership.
Professional learning to increase understanding and application of adult learning theory in the design and delivery of district-created professional learning.
From peer-to-peer coaching for teachers to developing the ability of deputy superintendents to support through the development of campus leaders, Learning Forward has taught countless educational leaders to “coach rather than tell” in order to build the capacity of those they supervise and support.
Working with district leads to design an instructional coaching program, including “coaching into” the development of a coach’s job description, program mission and vision, supporting campus leaders understanding of the role of a coach, and designing a program assessment plan.
Through facilitated inquiry, campus leaders learn to identify a problem of practice, set strong but realistic improvement goals, and move their work into action-focused leadership as the learning leaders of their schools. Within the community of practice setting, they also learn ways to share practices, collaboratively support the growth of all students, and build intentional alignment through feeder patterns.
Well-planned pipelines for teacher leaders, instructional coaches, and future campus administrators result in well-prepared leaders who step into their new roles with not only confidence, but the skills necessary to create impact in their first year.
Learning Forward can help districts design and facilitate networks that learn with and from each other, while addressing shared problems of practice.
By developing a three-to-five-year plan for assessing and prioritizing needs, designing, implementing, and measuring the impact of your professional learning efforts, districts ensure that professional learning efforts result in the impact your school board and stakeholders need to see. Having a strong professional learning plan in place ensures that efforts at the district and campus levels are aligned and cohesive and are in service to the goals of the district’s strategic and improvement plans.
Too often, the professional learning that district leaders plan and expect and what campus educators experience are very different. The Standards Assessments Inventory surveys campus-based educators about their experiences and perceptions of the state of professional learning they experience. Featuring a report dashboard that can show individual campuses and /or the district as a whole, the survey results give leaders at both levels a clear picture of the strengths and challenges of their current professional learning efforts. Aligned to the Standards for Professional Learning, the SAI offers a research-based pre and post assessment of your professional learning efforts to ensure that your future professional learning efforts are effective investments of your resources.
Don’t see what you’re looking for here? Scroll down to read about our bespoken professional learning programs.
Bespoke programs
Because some challenges are truly unique to the organization, we also specialize in crafting professional learning programs designed to foster success in meeting those unique challenges. Our bespoke programs are designed in response to the client organization’s preferences, timelines, and scaling needs. Like our other programs, professional learning is designed in partnership with the client to provide learning that supports the organization’s existing level of expertise and is designed to foster leadership and structures that ensure sustained implementation and growth. Examples of Learning Forward’s bespoke professional learning include:
Identifying human resource needs across a network of charter schools to ensure that teachers and leaders are placed in positions where their skills will most benefit students.
Developing customized walk-through and feedback protocols for observations that lead to productive coaching conversations that result in action and change.
Supporting districts in developing portraits of leaders and district-wide leadership competencies and development programs that included all staffing areas.
Working with PLCs of art teachers across a large urban district to develop and investigate problems of practice at cross discipline-and campus-levels.
Supporting implementation for state-wide professional learning initiatives by developing a series of in-person and virtual support programs.
Designing and facilitating a year-long learning series for state and nation-wide campus and district leaders in role-alike groups.
Supporting district with the attainment, implementation, and assessment of state-funded grants for improvement initiatives
Everything we do is customized to meet the needs and timeline of our district partners, and our efforts are grounded in the Standards for professional learning.
With over 50 years of experience in professional learning, we are uniquely positioned to support districts in building systems and processes that sustain continuous learning to sustain continuous growth.
Meet with us to learn more
Learning Forward contracts with districts and states to provide high-impact professional learning services and tools to transform professional learning, increase educator capacity, and improve student achievement.
