Esther Quintero Senior Research Fellow | Albert Shanker Institute
Elementary school teachers nationwide are seeking assistance in changing how they teach reading. This demand arises as new reading-related legislation requires them to adapt their teaching methods, posing a significant challenge.
"Go on Facebook, browse Twitter, and you’ll hear a common refrain: 'We want to change how we teach reading, but we don’t know where to begin. We need to see what it looks like. Give us models and examples of excellent literacy instruction.'"
Many states support professional development (PD) for teachers through recently passed laws. However, these programs often lack practical classroom applications. Kata Solow, executive director of the Goyen Foundation, highlights this gap and presents a model aimed at bridging it by providing concrete examples of effective literacy instruction.
At the Goyen Foundation, they have developed video-based PD that allows teachers to observe real classroom practices. "Teachers need opportunities to watch other educators teach so that they can learn from one another," says Solow. Their program, Teachers Teach Teachers (TTT), focuses on teacher-led sessions featuring videos of successful teaching methods.
Solow emphasizes the importance of teacher involvement in leading these sessions: "We believe this PD should be led by the teachers featured in the videos because they can explain their own work better than anyone else."
The TTT program selects specific literacy topics and showcases short videos created by experienced teachers demonstrating these topics in action. During virtual sessions, participating teachers discuss their practices and answer questions.
"Our most impactful and effective sessions have focused on routines that attendees can really dig into," Solow explains. The program aims to provide actionable strategies that teachers can implement immediately.
The success of TTT has prompted plans for further development, including follow-up meetings based on Japanese Lesson Study principles to refine practices.
"We believe in this work," says Solow. "We believe that teachers need and deserve concrete, practical, and teacher-led PD."
A national evaluation of K-12 school finance systems was conducted by researchers from the Albert Shanker Institute, University of Miami, and Rutgers Graduate School of Education. This project involved Susan B. Neuman from New York University, Esther Quintero from Albert Shanker Institute, and Kayla Reist from the University of Virginia.
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