Learning Forward’s 2023 Annual Conference

We can’t wait to see everyone at this year’s Learning Forward Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., December 3-6, 2023! Education leaders from around the world will gather to share professional learning expertise focused on creating and sustaining excellence in teaching and learning every day. Details listed below, or click here for more information.

PC03: Transforming Teaching through Curriculum-Based Professional Learning

Sunday, December 3, 2023 at 9:00 AM–4:00 PM EDT

Session Description: Experience curriculum-based learning and consider how it differs from traditional professional learning. Examine a set of research-based actions, approaches, and enabling conditions that effective schools and systems have put in place to reinforce and amplify the power of high-quality curriculum and skillful teaching. Consider strategies for applying them to your plans for professional learning.

Participants will:

• Engage in core, structural, and functional design features and enabling conditions of curriculum-based professional learning and consider implications for your work;
• Examine the foundation for The Elements, a challenge paper from Carnegie Corporation of New York;
• Consider roles and responsibilities or putting into action the elements of curriculum-based professional learning; and
• Apply The Elements framework to assess current practice and make plans for next steps.

Areas of focus: Curriculum, Assessment, & Instruction, Learning Designs

Topics: Change Theory/Management, Curriculum and Instructional Materials

Presenters: Jim Short (Carnegie Corporation of New York), Jody Bintz (BSCS Science Learning), Stephanie Hirsh (Learning Forward), Susan Gomez Zwiep (BSCS Science Learning)

Using Video Analysis in Curriculum-Based Professional Learning

Tuesday, December 5, 2023 at 9:30 AM–11:30 AM EDT

Session Description: Engage in analysis-of-practice using videoclips from the classroom as one teacher implements high-quality instructional materials and from professional learning as study group members analyze that same classroom videoclip. Link this experience to the Elements of Curriculum-based Professional Learning and implications for your setting. Consider leadership roles and responsibilities for putting the Elements into action.

Participants will:

• Learn from a nested analysis of practice from a powerful professional learning program and highlight core, structural, and functional design features and enabling conditions of curriculum-based professional learning linked to BSCS’s highly effective Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA) professional learning program;
• Determine leadership roles and responsibilities for putting into action the elements of curriculum-based professional learning based on district leaders’ experiences; and
• Reflect on the experience and consider implications for their work.

Areas of focus: Curriculum, Assessment, & Instruction, Implementation

Topics: Change Theory/Management, Curriculum and Instructional Materials, Implementation

Presenters: Jody Bintz (BSCS Science Learning), Michelle Dillard (Jefferson County Public Schools), Susan Gomez Zwiep (BSCS Science Learning), Brittany Hubert Thompson (Jefferson County Public Schools)