A Complete Professional Development Solution for Teachers, School-Based Instructional Leaders, and Senior District Leaders

How Instructional Leaders Align Teacher Practice & Improve Remote Learning

Teachers and leaders are rapidly discovering what works and what doesn't in remote learning. This professional learning is happening at an unprecedented speed—but too often, it's happening in isolation, so it's not leading to organization-wide learning and improvement.

While educators need a high degree of autonomy to respond to changing circumstances, they also need something only senior leaders can provide: coordination. This is no time for educators to operate in silos. 

Time is of the essence: students need us to get virtual learning right, and that requires two things.

First, it begins with effective instructional leadership—building on both the timeless fundamentals and the most effective new strategies for leading in virtual/hybrid learning contexts. 

Second, teachers need to master virtual instruction together—immediately—so sub-par materials and strategies don't become the norm. Practice makes permanent, after all. 

In the Virtual Learning Framework program, your district will rapidly build the professional capacity for sustained excellence in virtual, face-to-face, and hybrid teaching and instructional leadership.

Imagine if teachers across your organization were working from a shared framework that they helped develop.  

And what if this framework was already starting to emerge—just waiting to be noticed and articulated under the guidance of your instructional leadership team?

Right now, administrators and instructional coaches are struggling to provide support and feedback, using rubrics and expectations developed for a world that no longer exists. 

At least for now, virtual learning is here to stay—and we have a short window of time in which we can:

• Turn pockets of excellence into the standard for all students
• Prevent mediocre resources and practices from becoming a permanent part of our curriculum and pedagogy
• Develop a shared Virtual Learning Framework to align and accelerate our work in support of student learning

The Virtual Learning Framework program will guide your instructional leadership team through an evidence-driven organizational development process, culminating in a lean, actionable framework teachers and leaders can use together to improve virtual instruction.

Here's what your team will do in the Virtual Learning Framework program to rise to the challenges and make the most of the opportunities of virtual/hybrid instruction. 

First, Find The Bright Spots

The seeds of your Virtual Learning Framework are already sprouting in classrooms across your organization. Teachers are experimenting moment-by-moment, figuring out what works for their students. 

In times of change, the role of instructional leaders is not to issue top-down mandates, but to notice what's working—to recognize the "bright spots"—and spread the word, so excellence can become the norm for all students. 

The Virtual Instructional Leadership Challenge will train your instructional leadership team to use the 8 sources of evidence of to identify best practices and drive improvement for virtual, in-person, and hybrid teaching. 

Next, Make Sense of Teacher Practice

Gathering evidence of teacher practice isn't enough— instructional leaders must also engage teachers in conversation about their practice to understand their thinking and decision-making.

The Virtual Instructional Leadership Challenge will walk your instructional leadership team through a structured cycle of 1:1 conversations about practice, gaining direct insight into teacher thinking and decision-making—the heart of professional practice. 

The traditional observation cycle—pre-conference, observation, post-conference—overlooks some of the most important sources of evidence in a virtual learning context.

By engaging teachers in deep, meaning-making conversation about richer sources of evidence—from teacher-created resources to student work to video clips of lessons—leaders will develop a nuanced, up-to-date perspective on teachers' current practice and best next steps. 

Then, Outline Your Best Practices

As you discover what's working for your students, you'll start to draft your Virtual Learning Framework—first as individuals, then as an instructional leadership team. Then, with feedback from teachers, you're ready to put it into use as a living document. 

This is a reversal of the usual "research into practice" approach, because there's far too little existing research—and no time to waste. A massive experiment is underway across our profession, and we have the opportunity to learn from practice now, rather than wait to implement theory developed in the future. 

In the Virtual Learning Framework program, you won't have to wait years for researchers to identify best practices for virtual learning. Your teachers are already developing them, and in this program, you'll document these practices, make sense of them with teachers, and rapidly make them the norm across your organization. 

Now, Use Your Framework to Drive Improvement

Ultimately, your Virtual Learning Framework will serve as the "third party" in your feedback conversations with teachers—providing the standard of excellence against which all practice is gauged. 

Your Virtual Learning Framework is a rubric describing teacher practice in specific areas, with levels of performance to create a roadmap for improvement. Because teachers are involved in creating this framework from their own best practices, buy-in is automatic—and best practices can rapidly become the standard in all classrooms.

But your Virtual Learning Framework is also a living document—as new best practices emerge, you'll have a repeatable process and organizational habits in place to update your Framework, so it continues to serve as a touchstone for practice across your organization.

This Framework will be the scaffold for unprecedented improvements in teacher practice—not just in the future, but within the current school year.

Finally, Return To A Better Normal

To some extent, virtual learning is here to stay, and even when schools fully return to in-person learning, best practices will live on—such as smarter use of learning management systems. 

But using your Virtual Learning Framework to drive improvement this year will also build your organization's capacity for self-improvement long into the future. 

When you break down the silos between classrooms, departments, and schools, working toward a shared vision of professional practice becomes the norm. 

When you get teachers talking about student work, examining standards, and curating the most effective resources to help students master essential knowledge and skills, their ability to improve increases dramatically, and becomes a norm across the culture of your district. 

In addition to the Virtual Learning Framework program, you'll get our complete Instructional Framework Development Program, which will help you design other types of frameworks of shared expectations—now and in the post-pandemic future. 

Program Timeline: Starting October 2020

Beginning in October 2020, the Virtual Learning Framework program will guide your team through the process of:

• Holding focused 1:1 conversations with teachers about key practices
• Examining 8 sources of evidence of practice, giving you the rich information you need to make decisions—even when you can't get into classrooms for traditional in-person observations
• Training all staff in the 6 Essential Elements of Engaging Online Learning, including the Online Unit Design Plan Template
• Developing protocols for looking at student work in each subject area and grade level

Participating districts are free to use all program materials as they see fit. Here is a suggested rollout plan:

October 2020:

• District leaders consult with The Principal Center to develop a detailed timeline
• School-based instructional leaders complete the Virtual Instructional Leadership Challenge and begin cycles of 1:1 conversations with teachers

November 2020:

• Teachers begin Designing Engaging Virtual Learning training and start to identify best practices
• School-based instructional leaders begin using alternate sources of evidence to complete feedback cycles

December 2020:

• District leaders consult with The Principal Center to organize best practices into draft Virtual Learning Framework
• Teachers and school-based leaders provide feedback on draft framework

Early 2021:

• Teacher professional development builds on Virtual Learning Framework to share best practices across the district
• School-based instructional leaders continue cycles of feedback conversations with teachers based on Framework

Summer 2021: 

• School and district leaders continue to use the included online professional development programs to deepen their practice
• District teams make revisions to instructional frameworks as needed

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