Hi Susan, We have several network convenings throughout the school year. During these convenings, the teachers can share their key learnings related to the practices they are working on. We also have done gallery walks of student work and Critical Friends Groups. These convening support communication between schools.

The role of the coaches (like Bethany) can’t be overstated. The social networking analysis is proof- teachers rely on their pedagogical expertise and teams rely on them to move tools and practices across schools. EL Coaches working alongside Science Coaches is also critical—they work together to create hybrid EL-science teaching practices that teams of teachers can try on and take up.

Hi Todd — one of the most exciting things for me in joining the project has been seeing how structures that developed in certain places in the district have been formalized and taken up more broadly. For instance, Studio Days launched in 2 schools, and are now a regular part of what the district offers as an option for science PD. This has truly been partnership work over an extended period of time!

Are you working with multiple districts? What are some of the major influences you’ve heard about so far, re: NGSS implementation?

Hi Victor,
We have been partnering with teachers in HPS for 10 years. In the first 5 years we worked with teachers to specify ambitious and equitable teaching practices. Five years ago we began developing a job-embedded PD model with Studio days and three years ago we expanded from 2 schools to 8 then 15 schools. In terms of next steps we have much to learn about how teacher leaders and principals can support the work and about how we develop standard workflow processes to support the use of practical measures—and how teams can use this data for improvement. We are pivoting from working primarily with 1 school district to working across districts with 46 teacher leaders from across the state next year. This will give us a chance to see how practices travel and how NICs can continue to adapt practices to best meet the needs of their students.

7 districts! That sounds like an exciting and challenging context. Keep us posted on how everything continues to develop!

Will do … and will keep looking your way for ideas and resources for this complex work.

Thanks for your question. We have almost 100% buy-in from all teachers. We support teams (of teachers, coaches and researchers) in naming teaching practices and then investigating them—so we position the work and ourselves (as researchers) as an opportunity to work on problems that are difficult to gain traction on alone.

There are challenges at every step of the way, for example, finding the right way to involve principals, designing ways for students to give input (not just be objects of study), meaningfully working on hybrid science-EL practices, and supporting teams of teachers who do not have a history of working together…to name a few…

Thanks, Joseph. School administrators (at the district level and in the buildings) have been very supportive of this work since the beginning. Some have occasionally attended parts of teachers’ job-embedded professional development days. This year, we’ve begun to help principals and assistant principals make more connections between their broader work for their schools and the instructional framework that gives context to the science teacher learning. We conducted a series of science learning walks in classrooms in their buildings with the principals to look for different aspects of science practices, share reactions, and review how our professional learning would build on what we saw in the classrooms. Principals expressed enthusiasm for finding ways to better align their own conversations with teachers to the professional learning those teachers were focused on. They also expressed an interest in tying their school-wide initiatives (e.g., standards based instruction/assessment) more closely with their science teachers’ learning. Our new work to support development of teacher leadership around ambitious science teaching practices in these schools will to help continue these conversations as well.