The Teaching Lab Model

The Challenge

America’s teachers need better support.

New college- and career -ready standards and the accelerating demands of the knowledge economy require students to have access to engaging and rigorous instruction every day. Teachers work hard to meet these demands, but accountability efforts place pressure on them without the support they need.

Meanwhile, inequities persist: students of color, students from low-income families, English language learners, and students with disabilities are the least likely to benefit from access to engaging and rigorous instruction.

A large body of research shows that teachers are our most important resource. Despite spending $18 billion a year on teacher professional development, however, the vast majority of these efforts do not improve teacher practice. Most teachers agree, voicing frustration and lack of support from traditional “one and done” professional development.

Our teachers and our nation’s children deserve better. We know that teachers want to inspire students to learn and grow. And we believe teachers deserve to lead their own learning.

Teaching Lab seeks to dramatically improve instruction through teacher professional learning based in great instructional materials, teacher-led communities, and ongoing structures for learning and improvement.

What We Do

At Teaching Lab, we work with school, district, and state leaders to create the instructional systems necessary to support these changes. We are working with 5,000 educators across 500 schools, who are leading instruction for over 350,000 students.

Although Teaching Lab adapts our support to local contexts, our partners all use high-quality instructional materials because curriculum lays the foundation for:

Ensuring all students meet high standards
Shifting the paradigm of teacher professional learning, as it allows teachers to focus less of their time on lesson planning and more time innovating and differentiating for students.
Improving teacher practice, as research shows that when teachers study their curriculum, they are more likely to improve their practice and student learning.

PARTNER WITH US

The Teaching Lab Model

Teaching Lab’s core professional learning model is described as Head, Heart, Habits, and Equity

Head - Core academic content, aligned to specific curricular materials, and research-based practices.

Heart - Teacher-led communities that build buy-in, social capital, and empowerment

Habits - Structured and repeated cycles of inquiry in the classroom

Equity - All in the service of educational equity

Cycles of Inquiry

Each Cycle of Inquiry consists of two days, spaced 4-6 weeks apart.

At the “Open” of a Cycle, teachers learn new practices. In between sessions, teachers try out new practices in their classrooms. At the “Close” of a Cycle, teachers analyze student work. Teaching Lab team members will facilitate initial Cycles and then build up the capacity of Lab Leaders to run Cycles over time.

Stages of Lab Development

We believe that school leaders foster the conditions for “Labs,” which are groups of teachers of the same subject working with students in the same or similar grade levels within a school or network of schools.

Labs are run by “Lab Leaders,” who are experienced teachers and/or instructional coaches who support their colleagues’ development. We believe in a gradual release approach. Specifically, we support educators in progressing through the stages of “Lab Development,” or developing Lab Leader capacity to lead professional learning with their peers over time.

Labs are the engine behind Teaching Lab’s school model approach, and most partner systems will likely take 3-5 years to advance through the Stages of Lab Development.