Every school and community has its unique strengths, needs, and goals. So, we don’t deliver “one size fits all” prescriptive PD. Instead, we take the time to get to know your local contexts and then adjust our services and supports to match your school’s vision and goals.
We’re also flexible with how we deliver our professional learning sessions and consulting services to you. Depending on your local situation and needs, we can deliver services to you online, onsite, or in a hybrid mode.
Instructional Coaching
Use effective instructional coaching practices to create a unified, collegial, and supportive environment for teachers to collaboratively learn with, and from, each other. McREL can help your school or district create effective teacher teams that use peer observations and feedback to address specific instructional goals and spark innovative practices to improve overall instructional practice and support better classroom learning and management.
CLIENT SUCCESS: Jellico Elementary School, Tennessee
LEARN MORE: Classroom Instruction That Works
LEARN MORE: Student Learning That Sticks: A Brain-Based Model for Instructional Design and Delivery
LEARN MORE: PowerWalkthrough
Professional Learning for Teachers
Based on our education research and best-practice experiences working with schools across the world, our PD sessions give teachers the knowledge, strategies, and tools to increase student engagement and achievement—at any grade level and in any content area. You’ll learn to implement and sequence these powerful strategies, bring them to life with exercises, rubrics, and tips, and use a framework and planning guide that support 21st century skills.
CLIENT SUCCESS: Lincoln High School, Nebraska
LEARN MORE: Classroom Instruction That Works
LEARN MORE: Student Learning That Sticks: A Brain-Based Model for Instructional Design and Delivery
Free Consult: Get strategic advice for your challenges and goals
Looking for ideas and strategies to help you tackle a challenge or elevate performance? Not sure how to approach your issue, or where to start? Sometimes it helps just to talk it out. Contact us today to schedule a free, no-obligation 30-minute consultation with one of our experts. We’ll talk with you about your local situation and share relevant research-based, practice-proven strategies that can help you move forward.
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Designing & Evaluating Instruction Programs
A research- and evidence-based approach to instruction ensures all students benefit from high-quality teaching and learning. Taking an assets-based approach and working in close collaboration with your curriculum and instruction team, we can analyze your current instructional program(s), identify hidden or underutilized “bright spots” that you can scale up for bigger impact, assess needs and opportunities for growth, and create contextualized plans and resources for improving practices.
Supporting English Language Learners
Our research-based instructional strategies can enhance the achievement of English language learners (ELLs). We help teachers understand the five stages of second language acquisition and their instructional implications, and learn strategies for engaging ELL students in K–12 mainstream classrooms. We also offer facilitator training and a leadership academy to help you strengthen your skills around leading an ELL-focused learning community, facilitate training on ELL strategies, and increase your school or district’s capacity to address the unique needs of ELL students.
LEARN MORE: Strategies for English Language Learners
Power Walkthrough®
McREL’s Power Walkthrough software helps instructional coaches, principals, and PD leaders record notes during brief, informal classroom observations. The system automatically aggregates data and produces easy to read charts and data that can inform PD conversations and decisions about additional supports that will make a difference in student outcomes.
Power Walkthrough has “look for” templates based on strategies from Classroom Instruction That Works, Classroom Instruction that Works with English Language Learners, and The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching. Schools can also customize their template to match their specific goals.
CLIENT SUCCESS: Simi Valley USD, California
LEARN MORE: Power Walkthrough
Academic Language Learning
Emphasizing the acquisition of academic language for ALL™ students, or Academic Language Learners, we help teachers align content with the vocabulary, syntax, and discourse students need to “sound like a book” while presenting ideas, and use targeted academic language that supports the subject matter and helps students explain their reasoning, arguing from evidence, and asking questions. We can also help you integrate the language demands of CCSS in the content areas for English-language learners.
Instructional Technology Implementation
Technology alone will not magically transform the teaching and learning that is happening in your classrooms and systems. However, when you pair sound pedagogy with intentional use of technology to support students’ learning objectives, the results can be dramatic. We help educators be thoughtful and strategic about adopting and using instructional technology, and we provide professional learning and coaching for teachers on how to maximize ed-tech’s impact on student engagement and learning.
Teaching Reading & Writing in the Content Areas
Today’s rigorous standards call for increased literacy skills across content areas. These trainings, based on decades of education research and our series of guidebooks, provide a treasure trove of ideas and techniques for teaching and evaluating reading and writing in any content area—and show you how to select and use the right ones for your students. We’ll demonstrate an approach that improves students’ self-regulation skills, shows how to incorporate technology tools, and addresses the influence of the Common Core State Standards.