Project Description: Learning Innovations at WestEd worked with the Principal Investigators, regional field specialists, and classroom teachers as part of the National Science Foundation-funded Arizona Rural Systemic Initiative (AZ-RSI) for three years by providing technical assistance and a professional development series primarily focused on collaborative coaching in science and mathematics. The overall purpose of the AZ-RSI was to enhance standards-based mathematics and science teaching in low-performing schools in Arizona by enhancing the capacity of the mathematics and science regional field specialists to support K-12 classroom teachers.
Learning Innovations staff designed and delivered a professional development series for the AZ-RSI Principal Investigators, regional field specialists, and classroom teachers to deepen knowledge and skills in the following areas: content-based collaborative coaching in mathematics and science, facilitation of mathematics and science professional development, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (C-BAM), leadership development, cultural proficiency, and strategies to promote reflection on teaching and intentional teaching practice.
One of the key strategies used was videotape as a tool for reflection on coaching and facilitation effectiveness. As one participant reflected, …”Thank you for the work you have done with us. It has a far-reaching influence on me. I feel like I am paying attention to things on a new level – especially in terms of relationship and equity…. Before your work with us around culture…I would not have recognized the bias and potential impact on students…over the last couple of years that I have known you, I can almost feel a bit of transformation in myself from seeing, liking and using the activities and strategies you have done with us to a mindset shift in what I pay attention to in facilitating and how willing I am to take risks as a facilitator.”
WestEd staff involved with this project:
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