WAYS OF WORKING  ​ |   REIMAGINING INSTRUCTION  ​ |   COACHING PHILOSOPHY

 

Ways of working

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​Since 2002, we've been a leader in providing customized professional development to K-12 educators, schools, and districts in New York City and beyond. With a blend of deep expertise and a fierce commitment to transforming teacher practice, we work alongside educators to create promising practices for instruction, design strategic systems and structures, and build the capacity of individuals and school teams. 

Our innovative, contextualized professional development pairs you with a dedicated CPET coach who will work alongside you to encourage school-wide collaboration and community-building, and elevate professional discourse across teams, grade levels, and content areas. Our strengths-based, hands-on approach is grounded in providing meaningful, practical solutions to the problems you want to solve. 

Partner with us to transform your practice and revolutionize your school community. Get started here or by reaching out to us at cpet@tc.edu. 

Customized online coaching
​Take charge of professional goals — for yourself, your team, and your school — and invest in custom, online professional development. A customized online experience will support members of your teaching community in deepening their practice, create an opportunity for shared dialogue across teams, grade levels, and content areas, and pair you with a dedicated CPET coach who will customize course content to match your needs. While online, our hands-on approach is grounded in providing meaningful, practical solutions to the problems you want to solve.

Job-embedded coaching
Customized professional development for elementary, middle, and high school teachers and leaders. At all levels of professional development, we bring an attention to standards-aligned curriculum, effective instructional practices, and modeling and mentoring to create a positive professional learning community. Through direct support for instructional strategies and coaching for leaders, content area teachers, and struggling teachers, our team develops promising practices and supports the design of strategic systems and structures that build the capacity of educators.

Workshops, conferences, and courses
Standalone workshops & workshop series lead teachers and school leaders through interactive sessions that present opportunities to deepen pedagogical knowledge, apply learning to individual contexts, and collaborate in a safe community. Workshop sessions are designed with time for critical reflection, planning and practice, and an exploration into pertinent research.

Student publications & performances
Publication & performance site educators serve as teaching artists who work directly with students on the development of a publication or performance-based project in literary, informational, or student-authored texts. Modeling backwards planning, workshopping instructional methods, and the use of mentor texts, our coaches provide teachers an opportunity to see these practices in action with their own students. ​​

Curriculum development
Collaborating with organizations to design curricular materials including curriculum maps, unit plans, lesson plans, and student materials.​​

Data reporting & analysis
Information is power, but sometimes it's hard to find. We use raw data provided by schools to create in-depth and readable data reports to help deepen educators' inquiry skills and knowledge of students.

Research studies
Designing and implementing academic research studies with a focus on qualitative research that aims to represent the real-life experiences, perceptions, challenges, and contexts of educators while bringing new knowledge to the field of education.

Audits, inventories, and advisement
We conduct curriculum audits and program evaluations based on criteria jointly developed with partners. Through the review of materials, resources, or practices, our team reports on findings and provides recommendations for reaching the organization's stated goals.

Reform action planning
Supporting schools, networks, districts, and organizations to develop clear and actionable plans with implementation and intervention strategies.

 

Reimagining instruction

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In addition to providing curricular, pedagogical support for schools and organizations through our core services, we also spark curiosity and inspire change through our signature initiatives, which support early-career teachers, give voice to student authors, design immersive project-based learning experiences, and reimagine cross-cultural collaborations. Each initiative serves as an incubator for innovative approaches to K-12 education, creating powerful opportunities for daring educators — and their students — to envision and enact real change in their communities. 

Are you ready to take bold action? Partner with us to reimagine your instruction and bring imaginative, transformative opportunities to your school. 

Global Learning Alliance
WORLD CLASS, FOR EVERY CLASS

The Global Learning Alliance (GLA) is the outgrowth of our groundbreaking research on the features and practices surrounding 21st century teaching and learning. It evolved from seeds of a research project and is now a consortium of schools and universities around the world dedicated to understanding, defining, applying, and sharing the principles and practices of a world-class education within a wide range of educational contexts.

We can no longer sustain a 20th century in a 21st century world — and the GLA is committed to cross-cultural research collaborations as an effort to define a pedagogy that takes into account the dynamic needs of our changing world. The task before us is to educate students today for the world they’re poised to lead tomorrow. Learn more →

Literacy Unbound
ARTS-INFUSED INSTRUCTION

Predicated on a belief in the power of play in the classroom, Literacy Unbound seeks to unbind traditional approaches to the teaching of reading and writing, troubling the divide between critical and creative thinking, demonstrating that intellectual rigor ultimately requires both.  

Our approach brings teachers and students together as creative collaborators to re-imagine challenging, classic texts through multiple modalities. We reinvigorate classroom communities using arts-infused, project-based, collaborative curricula developed around a shared text, increasing student engagement and building community in the process. While many arts-integrated organizations work primarily with students, we believe that by positioning this work as teacher education, we can create enduring practices with sustainable impact. Learn more →

New Teacher Network
BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR THE FUTURE

The New Teacher Network at Teachers College (NTN@TC) is a community of practice for Teachers College's newest teacher graduates. NTN@TC membership is offered free of charge to Teachers College graduates in their first three years of teaching. Since its establishment in 2014, nearly 250 Teachers College graduates have connected to the network to participate in its custom blend of in-person and online collaboration, personalized support through customized professional development workshops, personalized coaching, and to be part of a dedicated NTN@TC online community.

NTN@TC’s online community offers asynchronous, peer-to-peer dialogue about the issues most pressing to early-career teachers. We support network members by providing a discussion forum, a library of digital resources, and the ability to request immediate assistance from one of our coaches. Teachers are able to pose challenges to the community, share successes, and upload materials for feedback from their peers. Learn more →

Student Press Initiative
RAISING THE BAR FOR STUDENT WRITING

The Student Press Initiative (SPI) is part professional development, part artist collaboration and part non-for-profit publisher. Our mission is to revolutionize education by advancing teacher leadership in reading and writing instruction. Working in partnership with teachers and school communities across the US and internationally, we create project- and inquiry-based curricula across disciplines and produce all-inclusive learning experiences that culminate with students “going public” with their writing.

Drawing on a wealth of research, resources, and talent, our team helps teachers build and facilitate units that provide opportunities to address audiences outside of the classroom, as well as link content-specific reading and writing skill development with the excitement of real-world learning. Through publication, we raise the bar for what, how, and why students write. Learn more →

 

Principles of practice

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We work hard to meet the needs of teachers and school leaders within their own context. As you strive to meet ever-changing standards, we’re striving to bridge gaps between theory, research, policy and practice. As we design professional development projects, we’re constantly examining how our promising practices can be solidified even as we support schools to manage evolving mandates. Through this examination, we’ve come to identify five principles of practice, also known as the 5Cs: cycles of inquiry, communities of practice, contextualized practice, cultivation of strengths, and critical reflection.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

​A collaborative approach to discourse and decision-making that cultivates relationships, honors individual perspectives, and works together for a common goal.

CONTEXTUALIZED PRACTICE

​While there are many patterns and trends in education, each partner, project and person is unique. We believe in designing each project to the culture, context and concrete goals.

CRITICAL REFLECTION

​Meta-cognition, self-awareness, and considering multiple viewpoints are all features of critical reflection resulting in reflective action. We learn from our successes and our missteps so that we can be constantly improving our practice.

CULTIVATING STRENGTHS

​Grounded in the Growth Mindset, we believe that improvement in growth areas increases when we leverage areas of strength first.

CULTURALLY RELEVANT & SUSTAINING PEDAGOGY

We acknowledge and affirm that everyone’s culture and identity are valid and valuable and that educators who cultivate culturally relevant, responsive and sustaining spaces for learning will increase student academic, intellectual, social and emotional growth.

CYCLES OF INQUIRY

​As educators, we must maintain a commitment to the inquiry process in which we identify challenges, pose questions, implement interventions, and monitor for improvements. It is this quest for understanding that fosters a learning community and helps us to evolve to meet the changing needs of our partners.