Shared Resources and Interesting Reading from 2024

This is a list of the resources, articles, and books on professional learning, coaching, and education compiled by the Learning Forward Texas staff. These were shared in the Straightforward Newsletters sent out in 2024.

January 2024

• Coaching is not consulting, nor is it collaborating. Here’s what it is -  Learning Forward- Coaching is a high-impact form of professional learning that helps educators build their expertise and hone their practices so students can achieve success. Although some professional learning leaders have an official coach title or role, any educator can use coaching as a way to support another educator. Doing so requires understanding what coaching is — and what it's not, said Sharron Helmke last week at Learning Forward's Annual Conference Read more

• 3 Key Strategies for Improving Teacher Growth & Retention - The Teaching Channel - As we enter the second half of the ’23-’24 academic year, school and district leaders face many challenges, including supporting and retaining their teachers. We are seeing school districts across the country successfully tackle these common challenges by embracing video-based professional learning and we are excited to share tangible steps on how your district can, too. Watch Recording

• Getting Unstuck: Conflict Resolution Strategies That Work - Edutopia - School leaders can use these strategies to turn down the heat and make progress on even the most intractable problems. Read more

February 2024

• A Teacher Rubric and Checklist for Assessing AI Tools - TCEA - There are a lot of AI tools floating around. But which ones are relevant, safe, and easy to use? Evaluate AI with this rubric and checklist! Read More

• Voice Lessons from Jennifer Abrams - Jennifer Abrams - Sign up for the Voice Lessons newsletter by Jennifer Abrams. A monthly commentary on communication challenges and a set of cool resources. Jennifer trains and coaches teachers, administrators, and others on new teacher/employee support, having hard conversations, collaboration skills, and being your best adult self at work. Read this month's blog

March 2024

• How to develop strategic, effective leadership - Edutopia - How can principals better understand and deal with anxiety and frustration when their leadership and day-to-day work responsibilities require skill sets that they have yet to develop? Managing this is crucial because when implementing schoolwide initiatives, anxiety increases throughout the staff when the principal, and others, are ill-equipped with the strengths needed to move things along. Read More. ​

• 6 things to know about evaluating professional learning - The Learning Professional - Is your professional learning doing what it’s supposed to do?  Check out this FAQ that spotlights six aspects you will want to know about evaluation. Read More

• Look beyond the satisfaction survey - The Learning Professional - Thomas Guskey explains how to go beyond participants’ reactions with an evaluation model that measures changes in teacher practices and student learning.  Read More

April 2024

• 23 Ways to Check for Understanding - TCEA Blog - As educators, we strive to ensure our students grasp the material we present. But how can we be sure our students understand the material? Checking for understanding throughout class is crucial for both teachers and students. Read More. ​​

• Practical ways educators say they are using AI in professional learning - Learning Forward -  In preparation of the release of the April issue of The Learning Professional on technology and the future of learning, we asked educators on LinkedIn how they are leveraging AI in professional learning. Read more

• 5 Popular Education Beliefs That Aren’t Backed by Research - Edutopia - The research suggests that adjustments to these common misconceptions can turn dubious strategies into productive lessons. Read more

May 2024

• Calendarizing: The New Principal’s Superpower – 5 Reasons to Calendarize - Teaching Channel - As a new principal, stepping into the leadership role of a school can feel like embarking on a journey with countless twists and turns. With so many responsibilities vying for your attention, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and lose sight of your priorities. However, there’s one tool that can serve as your guiding light through the complexities of school management: calendarizing. Read More​​

• What does the National Educational Technology Plan say about the digital divides? - EdTech magazine -  By addressing inequity through the lens of the National Educational Technology Plan's three newly defined digital divides, states, districts, and schools can create systems that enable all students, regardless of their background, to benefit from ed tech's opportunities. Read More 

June 2024

• 5 ways coaches can support technology integration - Learning Forward - A great coach doesn’t tell a teacher how to implement technology in the classroom but serves as a thought partner. Read More​

• What we learned about teacher wellness from our journal authors - Learning Forward - Learning Forward celebrates the work of teachers by offering a free bundle of wellness-centered articles to show our appreciation for teachers everywhere. These short articles were written by expert contributors for the 2023 "Focus on Wellness" column in The Learning Professional magazine, normally available to Learning Forward members.  Read More​

• Conducting Meetings that Matter - The Intercom- formerly Edutopia Weekly - School administrators can use staff meetings to build teachers’ collective efficacy with these four tips.  Read More​

July 2024

• 5 ways to support novice teachers with instruction  - Poster designed by Jamie Clark | jamieleeclark.com - An illustrated one-pager written by Haili Hughes presents five powerful mentoring strategies for supporting novice teachers. According to Haili, "Mentoring has many different facets, but one of these is to facilitate improvements in teaching." Download the poster.

• 'At the heart of every coaching conversation resides an inquiry into what people want.' Coaching Conversations with Jim Knight podcast - This episode provides valuable insights into effective coaching practices, the significance of empathy and understanding, and the transformative impact of dialogue in fostering growth and development. Jim Knight and Haesun Moon delved into the concept of scaling in coaching conversations and the importance of focusing on progress rather than deficits. Watch the interview

• Sometimes, we have to create our own professional learning practice - The Intercom- formerly Edutopia - Instructional coach John Schembari presented several strategies and resources for teachers to use in order to take charge of their own professional learning, especially when they feel unsupported by administrators. He cited newsletters The Marshall Memo and The Main Idea as good go-to places for current articles on K-12 education and teaching and invited readers to consider, "How might we take inspiration from these examples of collective caring and of independent and collaborative learning to infuse our practice with new information and meaning?" Read More

• Let’s get it right — everyone deserves a coach - Learning Forward Blog - A culture which reflects that everyone deserves a coach because everyone deserves to grow, transform, and support the positive impact of student achievement is an imperative message that must be made loud and clear in order to help make shifts in teacher practice. Read More

August 2024

• Making Sure Meetings Are a Good Use of Time  - The Intercom, Edutopia - Time is precious, especially for teachers, and improving school meetings is one-way school leaders can show genuine respect for their staff. Read more

• Advice for New Teachers From a Teacher of the Year  - The Intercom, Edutopia - Try implementing four simple ways of thinking to help guide you through your evolution as an educator. Read more 

• Professional learning through staff collaboration - Teacher Magazine - Research shows that high-quality teaching and leadership teams learn from each other's practices. At Loreto Normanhurst, Sydney, that philosophy has led to the development of their Open Learning Circles program, which sees professional development done in a collaborative, teacher-led format. Read More

September 2024

• Schools Can Help the Anxious Generation: A Call for K-12 School Leaders Webinar, Tuesday, September 24, 2024 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EDT - The Main Idea & EdWeb.net- Many of us are seeing unprecedented numbers of students struggling with mental health challenges. There ARE things we can do in schools to help. Save the date for a FREE live webinar with author Jonathan Haidt of the New York Times bestselling book, The Anxious Generation. Click here for more information. 

• Ready, Set, Reflect: 3 Questions to Ask Yourself as the New School Year Begins - National Institute for Excellence in Teaching - Educational excellence doesn't happen in a silo. With data-based learning and student ownership in mind, teachers can start the school year off on the right foot — but collaborating and growing with other educators is just as important as individual professional development. Teachers consistently rate collaborative professional learning as the most effective form of professional development. By supporting effective implementation of collaborative professional learning, school leadership can drive system-wide change. Read More

• AI is here. Let’s learn to use it wisely - The Learning Professional -

  Innovator A.J. Juliani, a self-described “realist” about technology, helps educators use AI to improve teaching and learning. Read More

October 2024

• How to prepare for a professional development conference - Learning Forward - In the weeks before attending a conference, develop your game plan. This article contains several strategies that can help guide your thinking when you're using the Learning Forward Taking Action Toolkit's goal-setting template. Read More

  
  

• Coaching heavy, coaching light: How to deepen professional practice - Learning Professional - Joellen Killion has revised her popular 2008 article on coaching heavy vs. coaching light to offer the field more clarity about how coaches' beliefs and intended outcomes affect their actions and, ultimately, their coaching practice. Read More

  
  

• How instructional specialists can build meaningful relationships across schools - Edutopia - Whether you're supporting teachers as an instructional technology specialist, seeing small groups as an intervention specialist, or otherwise have "specialist" in your title, you're juggling many necessary duties. Here are a few ways to engage with your campus(es) to navigate this dynamic and connect the dots across tasks and schools. Read More 

November 2024

• Tools that help make conference learning stick - Learning Forward - Learning Forward developed a Taking Action Toolkit to support individuals and teams in planning, organizing, and making sense of everything learned at a conference. The Toolkit includes actionable steps you can take before, during, and after the conference so that you can apply what you’ve learned to your work.  Access the entire Toolkit.

  
  

• Personalized Professional Learning: Elevating Teacher Voice - Author, Allison Rodman - This BAM! Radio Network interview with Kyle Hamstra and Allison Rodman gives you all the highlights of Personalized Professional Learning: A Job-Embedded Pathway for Elevating Teacher Voice in under 12 minutes. Looking for a little more? Click here to listen

  
  

• Lead better school teams with these 6 strategies - New Leaders - It's often said that schools rise and fall based on the quality of teamwork within their walls. Whether you're a new principal, assistant principal, teacher leader, or someone who's simply taking the reins as a new team leader for the first time, keep these six strategies in mind as you hone your leadership skills. Read More

December 2024

•  How to open and close a coaching conversation- Bright Morning podcast -

  A demonstration of how to deftly navigate through the three phases of a coaching conversation — beginning, middle, and end — successfully building trust and teacher agency. Best-selling author and coaching expert Elena Aguilar brings weekly tips, tools, and wisdom to educators with one goal: to help you thrive. Click here to listen. 

  
  

• Learning About Google Learn About: What Educators Need To Know - Tech & Learning - Google Learn About is a new experimental AI-driven platform that provides digestible and in-depth knowledge about various topics but showcases it all in an educational context. Described by Google as a “conversational learning companion,” it is essentially a Wikipedia-style chatbot/search engine and then some. Read more

  
  

•  How leaders can create space for others to lead - Lauren M. Kaufman - As a K-12 district leader, I can't be everywhere at once. That said, I’ve been implementing strategies that have been inviting me to pass the torch while empowering others to lead the learning. One of the most powerful ways to let others lead is by developing systems that empower them. Read More