What We Do: Professional Learning and Leading Collaborative

The Professional Learning and Leading Collaborative (PLLC) team knows that dedicated and well-prepared teachers and leaders are key to the success of any initiative. We engage educators and education stakeholders across the PreK-16 education system to develop, share, and implement innovative models and approaches that support the whole student. We build capacity, grow educator leadership, facilitate strategic planning and research, and coach educators to implement personalized and blended teaching and learning to meet the needs of all students. We design with the learner in mind.

Teaching

We build capacity and coach educators to implement personalized and blended teaching and learning to meet the needs of all learners based on analysis and your unique challenges.

Leading

We engage educators and education stakeholders across the PreK-16 education system to develop, share and research innovative models and approaches that support the whole student.

Learning

We support educational leaders in the development of coherent long-term strategies that set directions and priorities, support innovation, and provide resources to enable stakeholders to benefit fully from instructional initiatives.

Our work is driven by a vision to help everyone reach their potential. We do this by:

Analyzing the unique needs of educators and the learning environments they work within;
Building networks of schools and districts in which they can, through continuous improvement, learn and collaborate together;
Creating personalized and blended learning environments designed to focus on the ‘whole student’, recognizing inequities and diverse needs have to be addressed;
Developing ongoing, job-embedded professional learning opportunities based on the data-driven needs of educators and administrators in an effort to support each and every student;
Empowering educational leaders to plan and implement innovative learning initiatives while co-developing a coherent long-term strategy that benefits all stakeholders; and,
Facilitating one-of-a-kind professional learning experiences customized to meet educators’ individual and organizational needs.

PLLC’s Core Services

The Professional Learning and Leading Collaborative team provides customized and responsive coaching and strategic planning support for educational organizations, schools, and districts implementing new programs with sustainability in mind.

Our coherent strategic planning includes, but is not limited to:

Grant writing support
Creating and analyzing needs assessments specific to the school or district focus area(s)
Setting direction and priorities based on identified need(s)
Developing educator and staff supports and/or trainings
Providing resources for leading school and district programs

Dedicated and well-prepared educators and administrators are key to the success of any initiative within a school. Our in-person, blended, and/or virtual professional development and educational coaching hones the knowledge and skills necessary for planning and implementing innovative learning initiatives and provides a deeper understanding of the intersection of curricular standards and sound pedagogy. Through the use of content-specific/digital-age resources, research-based methods, and job-embedded strategies, all professional development is designed to be customized and tailored to fit your critical needs.

We provide subject matter expertise and instruction that includes, but is not limited to:

Coaching support
Competency-based learning
Computer science education
Differentiated Instruction
Digital-age curriculum and instruction
Learning differences
Online professional learning courses
Micro-credentialing
Schoolwide culture building and change management
Social and emotional learning
STEM/STEAM
Virtual/remote learning supports

School and district leadership need access to quality, relevant, and job-embedded professional development. They must be enabled as leaders to plan and implement innovative learning initiatives that build on existing foundations in order to develop long term strategies. Through the shared development of these strategies, and collaborating on the directions and priorities of your educational organization, the Professional Learning and Leading Collaborative can provide the resources to support efforts to ensure all stakeholders benefit fully from innovative instructional initiatives.

We provide subject matter expertise and perspectives to support leadership efforts that include, but is not limited to:

Building a coaching-mindset
Culture building
Equity-mindedness
Fostering STEM and computer science education
Leading digital learning initiatives
North Carolina Digital Learning Competencies
Personalized learning
Social and emotional learning
Virtual/remote school operations

The Professional Learning and Leading Collaborative team has extensive knowledge and experience in instructional design, facilitation, and application in a variety of mediums to get to the root of your professional development and program needs.

Needs assessments
Task and gap analysis
Online and blended course/ curriculum design
Personalized lesson planning
Learning management system design
Customized train-the-trainer models
Andragogy and adult learning theory
Data-driven planning and decision making personalized to the needs of your learning/training needs

PLLC Newsletter

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Code.org Regional Partnership

The Friday Institute worked together with Code.org to build and adapt the summer week-long Computer Science Principles and Computer Science A training to an asynchronous model. We produced the professional development materials and prepared the PLACE, our online platform, to help regional partners bring these trainings to educators across the United States.

CS4NC

CS4NC is the North Carolina chapter of the Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance — a consortium of states taking the lead to innovate with coordinated statewide computing education initiatives. CS4NC is focused on increasing awareness of computing education and coordinating activities and initiatives that will help us grow our computing education networks of educators and computing industry professionals alike.

FACES

FACES for Autism is an advocacy and educational program for parents and caretakers of Black children with autism. To expand the program to reach more families, the FACES team, supported by the design work of the PLLC, developed a “train the trainer” program.

Lexington City Schools Personalized Learning Capacity Building

The PLLC has partnered with Lexington City Schools to enhance their development work around personalized learning. This initiative has supported administrators and educators across six schools by providing both asynchronous and synchronous learning opportunities, in addition to individual coaching support.

Making Computer Science (CS) STICK: Systemic Change for Teachers at Wake County Public Schools

The Friday Institute, in partnership with the Wake County Public School System, is developing a sustainable community of elementary teachers to support ongoing integration of computer science (CS) concepts into core content areas. By implementing a scalable professional development program and co-creating locally relevant curricular materials with teachers, the project team aims to increase access to computing education in elementary schools, ensuring that every student in North Carolina has the opportunity to experience CS regardless of historical stereotypes and institutional barriers.

North Carolina Computer Science Professional Development

In partnership with the NC Department of Public Instruction, the PLLC team plans and organizes a year-long professional development program to support the implementation and facilitation of courses created by Code.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by young women and students from other underrepresented groups. The Friday Institute is Code.org’s regional partner for North Carolina.

NC DPI Innovative Assessments

A team from the Friday Institute has partnered with the Testing and Accountability Division at NCDPI to provide professional development and evaluation for the North Carolina Personalized Assessment Tool, currently under development.

Oak Foundation Micro-credentials

The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and PLLC Team has designed and facilitated a range of online professional development experiences that focus on learning differences, social and emotional learning (SEL) and learner agency in partnership with the Oak Foundation. In support of this work, the PLLC has also developed a SEL guide for administrators and added a new stack of learner agency micro-credentials to provide an elevated personalized experience where educators can construct their own pathways and have the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned.

Online Professional Learning: Professional Learning and Collaboration Environment (PLACE)

Built on research-based models of effective professional development, professional learning communities and online communities of practice, our courses focus on job-embedded, peer-supported and self-directed learning in which educators are exposed to a variety of perspectives on course material.

Southern Wake Academy: Professional Capacity Building

In collaboration with Southern Wake Academy, the PLLC has designed processes for practical and impactful differentiated instructional practices and lesson design, specifically designed for beginning and lateral entry educators.

Virtual Academies in North Carolina: Examining Profiles, Issues and Trends

This project aims to further develop the Virtual Schools Network by creating school profiles and studying the experiences of students, teachers, and administrators in virtual academies. It focuses on promoting equity in education, enhancing teaching and learning through technology, and fostering innovation across educational systems. Given the emergence of virtual academies in K-12 education, it is crucial to provide administrators and teachers with the necessary resources for effective virtual teaching while ensuring equitable access and quality in this school model.

Virtual Schools Network (VSN)

The Virtual Schools Network, a partnership between the PLLC team at the Friday Institute and NC Virtual Public School has committed to building a support system for virtual schools that puts the needs of educators, students, and their families first: tackling issues of personalization, data literacy, engagement, project based learning, and offering connections with other virtual school educators.

Wayne County Professional Capacity Building: Teaching and Leading in an Age of Complexity

In collaboration with Wayne County Public Schools, the PLLC has designed processes for leading and teaching in an “age of complexity” and provided a unique opportunity to develop innovative and responsive solutions specifically for administrators and beginning classroom teachers. School administrators utilized the liberatory design process to create equitable outcomes for their students once they identified a challenge among their feeder pattern schools.

Digital Learning Plan Initiative

Partnering with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the Professional Learning and Leading Collaborative offered focused professional development workshops and webinars for Digital Learning Plan Initiative grantees and their planning teams, complete with Digital Learning Plan visioning, planning and implementing templates to guide working teams towards personalized learning successes.

Learner Agency Online Professional Learning

Building on years of experience, these three free self-paced online learning modules help educators and leaders understand learner agency and put it into practice in the classroom. The content focuses on learning differences, social and emotional learning (SEL) and learner agency – based on feedback and support from educational leaders, equity advocates, researchers and practitioners.

Professional Learning Institutes

Professional learning institutes provide educators, coaches and leaders with the knowledge and resources necessary for planning and implementing successful innovative learning initiatives, both in the classroom and across a district. We offer large-scale face-to-face institutes, giving participants opportunities to experience educational uses of technology to support their own learning, plan and develop systems and procedures that encourage innovation, and begin the process of innovation with the support of peers and experts.

Remote Learning to Support NC Educators

The Friday Institute recently partnered with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to provide professional learning opportunities for educators in support of their transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 crisis. Though the Remote Learning Support webinar series is no longer synchronous, the content is still relevant and can be helpful to educators in schools and districts as they prepare for future remote learning plans.

The Innovation Project Early Learning Network (TIP ELN)

With a generous three-year grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, The Innovation Project (TIP) and its partners have developed and supported an inter-district network focused on redesigning learning environments to better address the early learning needs of vulnerable children. In its first two years, the Early Learning Network (ELN) engaged school design teams and principals from 36 schools in 12 North Carolina districts.

Trauma Informed Practice Support (TIPS) in Schools and Communities: Collaboration Between Education and Social Work

The core of the project focused on conducting focus groups that explored teachers’ and social workers’ experiences with the dual pandemic of racialized violence and COVID-19 using a trauma-informed framework and an interactive design method. Overall, we found that an interdisciplinary approach between education and social work provided insight related to trauma-informed approaches in educational contexts. Results of this study demonstrate that teachers and social workers articulate a need for professional development that could have an important impact on the experiences of children and families.