What makes great professional learning? Research indicates that the best professional learning occurs on the job, when teachers learn from experience and frequent feedback about their strengths and how to improve. A major benefit of Opportunity Culture models is how they provide teachers with ample time during the school day to co-plan, co-teach, and co-learn. Schools can schedule subject or grade-level teaching teams to be available at the same times. Both multi-classroom leaders and great teachers using elementary specialization and Time Swaps can mentor and lead peers during school-hour planning time. Team-teaching roles explicitly include learning on the job in a team committed to excellence for all students. In these materials, we provide a simple framework of the elements of effective on-the-job professional learning from teacher-leaders in an Opportunity Culture, for which we also drew on materials and research from non-Opportunity Culture schools. These will be helpful to any schools designing teacher-led professional learning, not just Opportunity Culture schools with their high-authority, full-responsibility roles. We cover the following topics:
- Defining Teacher-Leader Roles
- Selecting Teacher-Leaders
- Finding Time for Professional Learning
- Funding for Teacher-Leadership, and
- Evaluating Teacher-Leaders.
Please see these websites for more about teacher-led-professional learning:
