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Time spent on professional learning demonstrates a true priority for teaching and learning because educators' learning is linked to students' learning. When educators learn, students not only achieve greater success, but they also have opportunities to witness adults modeling the value of continuous learning and striving to strengthen their professional practice. At the heart of successful efforts to find time for professional learning are understanding how time is currently being used, examining policies and practices that are guiding its use, and reassessing whether current practices are meeting the learning needs of students and their educators. In this article, the author discusses key points about time that can help bring clarity when considering time use and planning next steps.

The instructional coaches in Kildeer Countryside School District 96 (KCSD 96), outside Chicago, are like tugboats, a key part of a maritime navigation system. Just as tugboats nudge and guide barges and ships that need steering assistance to navigate tricky waters, the coaches in KCSD 96 nudge and guide educators to navigate toward school and student learning goals. KCSD 96 uses data to adapt its coaching program to respond to shifting currents and evolving needs. Now in the district's 12th year with coaching, KCSD 96 leaders have identified key factors, which are presented in this article, to ensure that its coaching program and coaches nudge and guide all staff toward districtwide success.

Coaches make hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions that affect the daily work of teaching and learning. These decisions are not arbitrary; they are guided by the mental models coaches hold. Mental models are comprised of assumptions, beliefs, and generalizations, and they shape how people see the world and act in it. Coaches' mental models are powerful factors in determining how they see and understand their clients' classrooms, the school context and culture, and the work that needs to be done. This is one reason that different coaches often respond differently to the same situation. It is important for coaches to analyze their mental model, understand how it influences their work, and ultimately learn to expand it to best meet clients' diverse needs and contexts. This article explores three predominant mental models of coaches and proposes how coaches can overcome their limitations.

Joellen Killion is senior advisor to Learning Forward. In each issue of "The Learning Professional", Killion explores a recent research study to help practitioners understand the impact of particular professional learning practices on student outcomes. In this Issue Mary Kennedy conducts a review and analysis of the research on professional development in K-12 U.S. schools in the core content areas published since 1975. Acknowledging that past reviews of professional development research based on its core features have insufficiently considered the variance in research designs and professional development content and design, Kennedy approaches the review with different theories of action about how professional development influences teacher learning and enactment of learning in practice. The analysis yields a graphical as well as a statistical representation of effects that allows for alternative comparison of studies across contexts and for various types of interpretation.

Evaluation of professional learning illuminates the interactions that occur in the implementation of planned learning experiences and the necessary supports designed to improve professional practice and its effects on students. It investigates how a set of actions designed to achieve defined short- and long-term outcomes occur over time and how they strengthen professional practice and ultimately effect student results. In schools and school systems, however, educators who lead, facilitate, manage, and advocate professional learning as a primary means for improving educators' professional practice and student results struggle to find practical, meaningful, cost-effective, and timely means to evaluate this crucial work. Evaluation of professional learning is challenging work primarily for three reasons: the need for clear outcomes, clear purpose, and appropriate methodology and design. This article explores these challenges and recommends ways to avoid them.

In each issue of "The Learning Professional," Joellen Killion explores a recent research study to help practitioners understand the impact of particular professional learning practices on student outcomes. In this issue, Killion explores the study presented in "The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence" (Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan 2016). A meta-analysis of 37 studies of teacher coaching, many focused on literacy coaching, reveals that coaching positively affects both teaching practice and student achievement. The pooled effects of both general coaching and content-specific coaching have a positive and significant effect on teacher instruction as measured by classroom observations. Both general and content-specific coaching have a positive and significant effect on student achievement. The effects of teacher coaching on student achievement pooled across reading, math, and science are positive and significant. Content-specific coaching has a positive and significant effect on reading achievement. The number of studies of math and science content-specific coaching is small, and results are not significant.

In each issue of "JSD," Joellen Killion explores a recent research study to help practitioners understand the impact of particular professional learning practices on student outcomes. In this issue, she describes Z. Kisa and R. Correnti's 2015 longitudinal study of fidelity of implementation of principles of reform-aligned professional development content and process. In the study Kisa and Correnti examine teacher reform-aligned teaching practices at the end of the fourth year of implementation of writing instruction improvements in 31 America's Choice schools. Using survey data of teacher perceptions collected from teachers more than a decade ago, the researchers measured changes in implementation fidelity of professional development content and process as well as frequency of teacher implementation of reform-aligned instructional practice. The study's findings showed overall, participating schools implemented the professional development content and process reforms at differing levels of fidelity, which influenced the degree of change in reform-aligned teaching practice. The study concludes that only high-high schools (those exhibiting high growth in both content and process) were successful in increasing the frequency of teachers' enactment of reform-aligned teaching practices over the course of the study's four years, while all other schools experienced consistent tapering off of reform-aligned teaching practices over the course of the study.

The major challenge with time is finding it. Current school-day schedules and school-year calendars are leaner than ever because of budget reductions. States and districts have implemented furlough days to balance lean-and-mean budgets that show no sign of improving. Few are willing to take the leap toward reducing instructional time to improve learning because of the illogical nature of that proposition. Yet across the nation and around the globe, instances exist where increasing time for educator collaborative professional learning that incorporates developing and analyzing assessment data, instructional planning, designing and implementing interventions, giving and receiving feedback, and reflecting on practice has positively influenced student achievement. The logic is simple: Better instruction leads to better learning. This article offers the "Learning Forward" workbook to guide districts and schools as they develop, vet, and implement recommendations for increasing collaborative learning time for educators, and then evaluate the effectiveness of the change.

Key findings from a new study highlight how Learning Forward's long-standing position on professional learning correlates with practices in high-performing systems in Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and British Columbia. The purpose of this article is to share key findings from the study so that educators might apply them to strengthening professional learning in their schools and school systems, and to compare the findings from the study to Learning Forward's long-standing position about professional learning grounded within its definition of and standards for professional learning.

The future of professional learning is shaped by its present and past. As new technologies emerge to increase affordability, access, and appropriateness of professional learning, three beliefs are visible in current practices related to online learning. Each contains a premise that merits identification and examination. The authors call these beliefs "myths" that may emerge from faulty assumptions about what learning is, how it occurs, or how to bring about its transfer to practice. This article examines three commonly held myths about technology-supported professional learning. Each has significant implications for how state or provincial agencies, school systems, or schools support professional learning and how individual educators experience it. In addition, these myths have implications for vendors and providers of technology-supported professional learning. Myth 1: Access equals learning. Myth 2: Knowledge improves practice. Myth 3: Individualized learning alone transforms schools.

Professional development designed to integrate key features of research-based professional learning has positive and significant effects on teacher practice and student achievement in mathematics when implemented in schools that meet specified technology-readiness criteria. Key features of research-based professional learning include intensive focus on content-specific and pedagogical practices aligned with new standards, sustained classroom-based and online support over multiple years, and professional learning for principals on monitoring and supporting teacher implementation of newly acquired practices. eMINTS (enhancing Missouri's Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies), a decade-old professional development program promoted inquiry-based instruction and learning, high-quality lesson design, community within classrooms among students and teachers, and technology-rich learning environments. This article describes the randomized trial evaluation study in 60 rural schools, designed to address limitations of previous evaluation studies and meet criteria of the national What Works Clearinghouse. Professional development was designed to integrate key features of research-based professional learning and had positive and significant effects on teacher practice and student achievement in mathematics when implemented in schools that meet specified technology-readiness criteria. Professional development was supplemented with written curricula and just-in-time learning through online courses for extended support. Principals worked with eMINTS consultants to support implementation and integrate eMINTS with other initiatives. Teacher survey results indicated a statistically significant effect in inquiry-based learning and high-quality lesson design between the treatment and control groups, with positive yet not statistically significant differences in community of learners.

Adapted from the brief "Meet the Promise of Content Standards: Investing in Professional Learning," this article draws on the work of Learning Forward's initiative, Transforming Professional Learning to Prepare College- and Career-Ready Students: Implementing the Common Core. This multidimensional initiative is focused on developing a comprehensive system of professional learning that spans the distance from the statehouse to the classroom. The project will reform policy and practice and apply innovative technology solutions to support and enhance professional learning. With an immediate focus on implementing Common Core State Standards and new assessments, the initiative provides resources and tools to assist states, districts, and schools in providing effective professional learning for current and future education reforms. [To access "Meet the Promise of Content Standards: Investing in Professional Learning" see ED540179.]

In each issue of the "Journal of Staff Development" ("JSD"), senior advisor to Learning Forward author Joellen Killion explores a recent research study to help practitioners understand the impact of particular professional learning practices on student outcomes. Detailed in this issue is a randomized control study in which researchers examined the impact of an inquiry-based science curriculum for 5th-grade English language learners (ELLs), recently reclassified ELL students, and non-ELL students coupled with teacher professional learning in science content, content-specific pedagogy, and language acquisition on two distinct measures of science achievement. The intervention had a positive and significant effect for all students at the end of the first year of the three year intervention. [The study featured in this issue is Llosa, L., Lee, O., Jiang, F., Haas, A., O'Connor, C., Van Booven, C., & Kieffer, M. (2016). "Impact of a large-scale science intervention focused on English language learners." "American Educational Research Journal," 53(2), 395-424. (EJ1095224).]

Teacher coaching is a powerful form of professional learning that improves teaching practices and student achievement, yet little is known about the specific aspects of coaching programs that are more effective. Researchers used a blocked randomized experiment to study the effects of one-to-one coaching on teacher practice. When pooled across all teachers in both cohorts, there is no effect of coaching on teacher practice, yet considerable variability exists between the cohorts. Changes in program design that occurred between the two cohorts provided researchers an opportunity to study how differences in program features influence positive effects in the first cohort on teacher practice and the absence of effects in the second cohort.

As the call for professional learning that incorporates ongoing feedback and support increases and resources to address that need decline, more states, districts, schools, and individuals are turning to technology. Technology creates significant opportunities for more focused professional learning, especially when it is effectively integrated into a comprehensive system for professional learning. While technology can enhance professional learning, how educators use it will determine the degree to which it can influence educator practice and results for students. As individuals, schools, districts, and states strive to meet the demand for professional learning generated by Common Core standards and other emerging initiatives in education, effective use of technology requires careful consideration and planning.

A sweet spot is a place where a combination of factors comes together to produce the best results with greatest efficiency. As school systems around the world are increasing expectations for what students learn and what educators do to support their learning, they must aim for the sweet spot to achieve maximum results for their efforts. When student content standards and educator performance standards intersect and are surrounded with accountability and support systems that create the conditions for high degrees of educator and student learning, a sweet spot emerges for professional learning. In this sweet spot, educators have the best leverage for making one of the most important decisions about professional learning: its content and outcomes. The sweet spot evolves in the link that occurs among professional learning, educator performance standards, and student content standards. When its content integrates student learning standards and performance standards at the precise level of learning educators need, professional learning has the greatest potential to support educators in changing practices to increase student learning. With a laser-like focus on the sweet spot, professional learning becomes more effective and efficient in promoting deep substantive learning that expands the length of an educator's career. Firmly aligned with expectations defined in performance standards, professional learning generates the highest level of student learning outcomes.

Implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS), now adopted in a large majority of states, requires significant support. To realize the potential of these new college- and career-ready standards, states must focus significant attention on how to prepare educators for implementation. Key among the strategies is high-quality, sustained professional learning that moves educators from awareness and understanding to implementing, analyzing, and revising instruction, assessment, and leadership practices. Any shortcut in professional learning is likely to minimize the potential of the standards and undermine students' opportunity to be college- and career-ready at the end of high school. State boards of education have both the responsibility and authority to influence the quality and results of professional learning as a significant strategy to ensure implementation of reform efforts. To this end, boards should consider the following actions: (1) Define, implement, and monitor effective professional learning; (2) Build alignment and coherence between professional learning and the state's priorities and goals for the Common Core State Standards; (3) Establish adequate of resources for professional learning that incorporate strategic use of local, regional, state, and other public and private resources to ensure equitable access to, effectiveness of, and results from professional learning; (4) Consider flexibility in existing rules and added support for local schools and districts with varying needs; and (5) Build statewide stakeholder and public support for the role of professional learning in achieving education reform. State boards of education must acknowledge and act to the extent of their responsibility and authority to ensure that all educators experience effective professional learning to achieve the promise and potential of Common Core State Standards to prepare all students for college and careers. (Contains 4 endnotes.)

What percentage of their budgets should schools and districts invest in professional learning? To answer that question, schools and districts must first know how much they are spending on professional learning and be able to connect that spending to student achievement. Knowing what is invested in professional learning requires understanding the multiple sources of funding for professional learning, how those funds are dispersed, how the funds are coded, and who manages the expenditures. Understanding what is invested in professional learning requires consensus on what constitutes an expense, consistency in coding expenditures, and sophisticated accounting systems that can aggregate and analyze expense categories across multiple income areas by program, school, or income source. Adequate accounting systems increase districts' and schools' ability to analyze, prioritize, coordinate, and monitor resources for professional learning. This article presents a list of principles that will guide districts and schools in allocating and assessing resources in professional learning. For many districts and schools, these principles require a shift from how they have traditionally supported professional learning to emphasize structures and policies that lead to practices linking educator learning to student learning. The bottom line is that truly focusing professional development requires administrators to figure out where their dollars are spent, whether those patterns align to strategic goals for teacher improvement, and, if not, institute changes to the spending.

Student success depends on effective teaching--not just occasionally, but every day in every classroom and school. Effective teaching impacts students' academic, physical, social-emotional, and behavioral well-being. Generating a vision, developing an instructional framework, and delineating student learning outcomes by themselves are insufficient to produce effective teaching. Effective teaching requires not only explicit performance standards for educators but also processes for improving and assessing effective practice. Performance standards for teachers define instructional expectations and inform the individual improvement and criteria for measuring effectiveness. Effective teaching is possible in every classroom by ensuring every educator experiences substantive professional learning within a culture of collaboration and shared accountability. Professional learning is the only strategy in school systems that moves the vision, instructional framework, standards for students, and standards for educators into action. Common attributes of effective schools are discussed.

Learning Forward introduces new Standards for Professional Learning. This is the third iteration of standards outlining the characteristics of professional learning that lead to effective teaching practices, supportive leadership, and improved student results. The standards are not a prescription for how education leaders and public officials should address all challenges related to improving the performance of educators and students. Instead, the standards focus on one critical issue: professional learning. These standards call for a new form of educator learning. The decision to call these Standards for Professional Learning rather than Standards for Professional Development signals the importance of educators taking an active role in their continuous improvement and places emphasis on the learning. By making learning the focus, those who are responsible for professional learning will concentrate their efforts on assuring that learning for educators leads to learning for students.

Teacher leaders are vital to establishing a collaborative school culture that fosters continuous improvement of teaching and student achievement. Over the last seven years, Learning Forward's support of teacher leaders has focused more on teachers who support their colleagues by serving in one or more of many roles with one of many diverse job titles. A fundamental belief underlying Learning Forward's work is the importance of collective responsibility. This belief acknowledges that no school or system will succeed based on the leadership of a single hero leader. Deep change requires that all parties within a school or school system work collaboratively and productively to realize results for every student. In "The Learning Educator: A New Era for Professional Learning," Stephanie Hirsh and the author (2007) describe eight principles that guide effective professional development. This article discusses three of these principles which serve as the foundation for teacher leadership: (1) leadership; (2) expertise; and (3) collaboration.

Schools and districts are beneficiaries of multiple opportunities to extend and enhance their core work of educating students through partnerships in two ways. These opportunities emerge either from invitations that come from outside the school and district, such as those from corporations, universities, or regional education agencies, or they are sought, such as through grant applications to public and private foundations or in selecting consultants to support initiatives. When partnership opportunities occur, thoughtful analysis of the opportunity before entering into a partnership ensures that the endeavor will thrive. Reciprocally beneficial partnerships expand opportunities and extend the capacity of schools and districts. Schools and districts have much to offer as partners because they are so visible in their communities and because they touch so many members of a community. They have much to gain and potentially much to lose from partnerships. The sure way to find and enter partnerships that add value to each partner is to take adequate time to build relationships with potential partners, assess potential partnerships, evaluate partnerships they enter, and avoid partnerships that might detract from their priorities and immediate needs.

Policy influences practice. Policy has the capacity to strengthen practice by demanding accountability for both process and results through clear expectations as well as deliberate sanctions for failure to meet those expectations. Policies can also provide resources to meet expectations. In this article, the authors discuss how several national organizations explore policy pathways to professional learning.

The authors' experiences with improvement efforts, particularly those which failed to be fully implemented, cause them to wonder if other approaches to improvement will increase their potential for success. They conclude that principles--powerful beliefs that underlie actions--are essential to sustained system and school improvement. Over the years, they have identified principles consistent with the most effective improvement efforts associated with professional learning that increases impact on educators and students. As a result, they offer a set of principles for those who want to improve professional learning and increase its effect on educators and adults. They believe that these eight principles will lead to more effective, principle-driven professional learning focused on shared goals of improved leading, teaching, and student learning.

In this article, the authors argue that district and school leaders continue to struggle with the apparent dichotomy between "traditional" and "reform-oriented professional development," especially with increased presence of professional learning communities in schools and their use in replacing other forms of professional development. Traditional professional development, most practitioners agree, is an expedient way to build the fundamental knowledge and skills associated with innovations in curriculum and instruction. Reform-oriented professional development, however, increases implementation and transformation of practice, researchers are finding. Implementation in classrooms is what impacts student learning. The authors propose that practitioners can negotiate the dichotomy between traditional and reform-oriented professional learning through the use of the macro-learning and micro-learning continuum. Macro learning experiences are those that occur at the broad level. They involve explicit occurrences of cognitive learning; staff engages in these experiences to acquire knowledge and skills. Macro learning deepens content and pedagogical knowledge and skill but does not guarantee that learning is transferred to practice. Teachers engage in micro learning as they apply their new knowledge and skills gained through macro learning, thus transferring learning to practice. The authors conclude that the artful weaving of macro and micro learning produces the greatest benefits for students. As school staffs continue to refine the implementation of professional learning communities, it is essential that they step back to determine if their practice incorporates sufficient macro and micro learning to produce the changes they intend--for both adults and students.

A randomized trial study, conducted over two school years in 18 high schools in Washington, finds that "An Inquiry Approach," a three-year, educative curriculum for high school science, has a positive impact on student achievement, teacher practice, and fidelity of implementation of the curriculum when the curriculum is paired with professional development for teachers. Well-designed, educative curriculum and materials, coupled with face-to-face professional development related to the curriculum, lead to more effective implementation of the curriculum, improved teacher practice, and student achievement

Teacher leaders assume a wide range of roles to support school and student success. Harrison and Killion describe 10 roles that teacher leaders can fulfill in their schools. As resource providers, they provide materials to help their colleagues. Instructional specialists help colleagues with instructional strategies, and curriculum specialists ensure that the adopted curriculum is consistently implemented. Teachers can also coteach and observe in colleagues' classrooms or mentor new teachers. Planning professional learning opportunities and serving on committees are also important roles. Some teachers also encourage colleagues to analyze and use data more effectively, learn new things, or change the status quo. The variety of formal and informal opportunities these roles encompass means that any teacher can be a leader.

To increase student achievement, schools and districts are hiring teachers as leaders to support peers in improving teaching and learning. Their roles are variously called coach, school-based staff developer, instructional specialists, or program facilitator. Yet though many have exceptional teaching skills, they seldom have a deep understanding of working with adult learners, facilitating professional learning, and taking a broad view of the educational system. For coaches to be successful in their work and to contribute to improving teaching and student academic success, they depend on key stakeholders--associations, state agencies, districts, schools, and principals. This paper presents a discussion of the support these stakeholders provide to school-based coaches. Providing appropriate support helps school-based coaches transition from teachers of students to leaders of teacher learning. As leaders responsible for providing intensive support to their colleagues, school-based coaches are better equipped for success in this new role if they, too, have ample support. (Contains 2 resources.)

In this article, Joellen Killion highlights the methodology, analysis, findings, and limitations of Jacob, R., Goddard, R., Kim, M., Miller, R., & Goddard, Y. (2015, September). "Exploring the causal impact of the McREL Balanced Leadership program on leadership, principal efficacy, instructional climate, educator turnover, and student achievement". "Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis", 37(3), 314-332. Researchers designed and implemented a randomized control study of McREL's Balanced Leadership program implemented in rural schools in northern Michigan. Funding came from the Institute of Education Sciences through the U.S. Department of Education. The study measured the impact on principal and teacher perceptions, beliefs, practices, and student achievement using data collected from both principals and teachers in their schools. The study, which was conducted between 2009 and 2011 in rural schools in northern Michigan, finds positive, statistically significant impacts on variables related to principal self-efficacy beliefs, principal leadership practices, and instructional climate, yet finds no statistically significant changes in student achievement or in teachers' perception of leadership practices.