Coaching During COVID: 6 Key Takeaways from Jim Knight and Diane Lauer

Are you registered for April 17th's live Coaching During COVID conversation? We'll be talking district strategy, coach-teacher communication, and much more in a live Q&A with Jim Knight of the Instructional Coaching Group and Diane Lauer of St. Vrain Valley Schools. To tee up that conversation, we pulled some highlights from Jim Knight on adapting instructional coaching in a virtual context.

Case Study

Lubbock Independent School District

Anna Jackson

Executive Director of Leadership and Professional Development

It takes dedicated support to make professional learning not just inspirational but effective. West Texas’s Lubbock Independent School District pairs instructional coaching with content focus strands to close the knowing-doing gap.

The Future of Professional Learning: 8 takeaways on innovation in PD

ESSA’s emphasis on evidence-based professional learning has spurred too much new and potent thinking to ignore. The trick is understanding where innovation can inform and improve the best practices we already know work. We sat down with Diane Lauer, Assistant Superintendent of Priority Programs at St. Vrain Valley Schools, for a chat on where the next steps are and how they connect to what we've been doing all along.

Rethinking Teacher Evaluation

Camdenton R-III School District shares how they moved beyond a compliance-driven culture of teacher evaluation to one that is a natural extension of professional learning.

Implementing Evidence-Based Programs with Fidelity [Part 2]

The story of the last decade of professional learning has been around the idea of “evidence for practice.” With ESSA’s definition of professional learning, it’s clear that programs have to be linked to research that shows impact on students. But choosing a research-backed framework is the easy part. Translating it into practice — also known as “implementing with fidelity” — is a taller order. Find out how two real-life practitioners optimize these drivers in a school district setting, track implementation success in real time, and understand what works and why.

Actionable data: Building momentum with consistent data checks

A good foundation is critical to your professional learning plan's success — but all the value alignment, calendar coordination and guiding philosophy in the world won’t guarantee a good outcome. Without clear intention for what the final product will actually do, the people it's serving won’t be able to make sense of the “why do we have this?,” let alone the “how do we use this?” Today: simplifying data presentations for accessibility, understanding and buy-in.

Implementing Evidence-Based Programs with Fidelity [Part 1]

The story of the last decade of professional learning has been around the idea of “evidence for practice.” With ESSA’s definition of professional learning, it’s clear that programs have to be linked to research that shows impact on students. But choosing a research-backed framework is the easy part. Translating it into practice — also known as “implementing with fidelity” — is a taller order. Find out how two real-life practitioners optimize these drivers in a school district setting, track implementation success in real time, and understand what works and why.

KickUp Partner Spotlight: Rock Hill Schools

Dr. Joya Holmes, Executive Director of Professional Learning at Rock Hill Schools, talks about how RHD transformed their PD programming and connected teacher practice to student achievement through data.

Implementing and Monitoring Programs: Mid-Year Checks for End-of-Year Success

Join Central Rivers Area Education Agency and Youngstown City School District to go over how two real-life practitioners planned and implemented their PD programs — and the evidence they're using to chart the next steps.

KickUp Partner Spotlight: Clayton School District

Janet Crews, Coordinator of Professional Development at Clayton School District, talks with KickUp about PD alignment, the power of data, and making a difference for teachers.