In today's world, students must not only acquire information, but competently analyze, synthesize, and apply what they've learned to address problems, design solutions, collaborate effectively, and communicate persuasively, writes Linda Darling-Hammond in The Washington Post. Efforts to manage instruction through top-down prescriptions will not enable the teaching required. Educators must be able to model and demonstrate these skills, link what their students already know to what they must learn, build on students' diverse experiences and language backgrounds, and structure rich learning opportunities that combine explicit instruction with inquiry, feedback, reflection, and revision. Teacher collaboration can transform practice to meet these expectations. Yet a recent National Center for Literacy Education (NCLE) survey found only 32 percent of educators have a chance to co-create or reflect with colleagues about how a lesson has worked; only 21 percent are given time to examine student work with colleagues; only 14 percent receive feedback from colleagues; and only 10 percent have the opportunity to observe the teaching practices of colleagues. The NCLE survey also found that in schools where educators report professional collaboration is routine, trust is high, and effective practices are shared more rapidly. Where principals, school system leaders, and instructional coaches model collaborative decision-making, real change in student learning results. More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

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Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) is an education support organization that works as a collaborative partner in high-poverty communities.