Resources: Professional Learning and Leading Collaborative

Access to Opportunities: A Student-Centered Approach

This case study focuses on equitable learning practices in four schools in the Beaufort County Schools (BCS) district in rural southeastern North Carolina.

Addressing Learning Differences with Remote Learning, Part I

This video and accompanying slides focus on defining learning differences in the context of Principles for Remote Learning, connecting with students and families, and promoting student engagement.

Addressing Learning Differences with Remote Learning, Part II

This video and accompanying slides focus on defining learning differences in the context of Principles for Remote Learning, Universal Design for Learning, selecting appropriate tools and content, and pursuing equitable access to education.

Addressing the Social and Emotional Needs of Students through Distance Learning

This video and accompanying slides cover strategies and activities to foster meaningful relationships and build a virtual learning community that supports our students’ social and emotional needs through empathy in our new virtual learning context.

Breaking Systemic Barriers to Careers in Teaching Post-COVID

This research-informed article featured in The Forum of American Journal of Education explores how educator preparation programs might use race-driven questions in their research, assessment, and progress towards educational equality to diversify the demographics of teachers and administrators and help close the racialized achievement gap.

Building Capacity and Expertise in Rural Areas

Resulting from the Friday Institute’s work in Wyoming and Tennessee, this report highlights how the creation of a professional learning cohort, professional learning networks (PLNs) and coaching can help rural schools and districts support principals and teachers to positively impact teaching and learning.

“A Constant Conversation” – The Implementation and Impact of the Learning Differences Program at Manning Elementary School in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina

This case study details how the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and Manning Elementary used a modified Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) with a continuous feedback approach and the FI’s Learning Differences program to help teachers successfully build capacity and make progress in addressing students’ learning differences.

Craven County Schools Case Study

This case study highlights the partnership between the Friday Institute and Craven County Schools administrators, principals and teachers to address specific challenges around differentiating instruction to improve learning for students with disabilities.

Differentiation for All Learners: Foundations and Models

What does differentiation look like in a remote learning setting? This video and accompanying slides present concrete, realistic, and customizable examples to support curriculum and instruction.

Differentiation for All Learners: Tips and Strategies

This video and accompanying slides present tips and strategies to not only make remote learning accessible and equitable but ensure educators are meeting their learners where they are with the tools, resources and support they need.

Effective Coaching: Insights From the Field

This story from the field was developed to capture stories of instructional coaches from across the state that have participated in the professional learning offerings provided through the North Carolina Digital Learning Initiative.

Engaging Your Latino Families During This Time of Crisis

Methods, suggestions and ideas to better reach and engage your Latino families during the COVID-19 crisis.

Forcing Perspective One Human at a Time: A Webinar for Teaching Media Literacy

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning to Support NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides examine how a vantage point can be manipulated daily by today’s technology advancements and provide a few media literacy strategies that any K-20 educator can use with students to help combat mis/disinformation.

Fostering Engagement in Times of Uncertainty

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning to Support NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides share strategies for supporting active engagement with students, families and school communities and discuss ways educators can capture new learnings for personal and professional reflection.

HillRAP Research-Based Program in the Context of Local Schools

This case study covers lessons learned from the implementation of the Hill Reading Achievement Program (HillRAP) at four North Carolina schools.

Improving Professional Learning Opportunities in Rural Schools

This brief highlights how the creation of a professional learning cohort, professional learning networks and coaching can help rural schools and districts support administrators and teachers to positively impact teaching and learning.

Insight into Contemporary Professional Growth Needs for North Carolina Educators

Researchers from the Friday Institute conducted this exploratory qualitative study to better understand the classroom-, school- and district-level challenges North Carolina educators were facing one year into the pandemic.

Instruction, Remote Learning, and the Adolescent Brain

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides explore brain-science based strategies and resources to help secondary teachers align remote instruction to how the adolescent brain works to keep students engaged and excited about learning.

Instructional Design Principles for Remote Teaching and Learning

In alignment with NCDPI and the NC State Board of Education’s mission and vision, these seven principles are designed to provide guidance for student learning across North Carolina when state, national, or international crises impede students from learning in their regular school setting.

Intentional and Consistent: SEL in Action at Visitation Catholic School

This case study highlights one urban school’s implementation of social and emotional learning (SEL) to address the needs and challenges of their students.

Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? A Plea for Teaching Media Literacy and SEL in Your Classroom

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides explore two integrated lessons to help educators address the media demands of today’s student as well as offer opportunities to commit to the whole child.

Kids’ Questions Matter! Inquiry to Read, Write, Research and Think

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying website explore how to teach students to ask good questions, conduct independent research and collaborate with peers to share their findings.

Maintaining Motivation and Momentum

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides explore strategies to help educators reengage and reignite with their students through remote learning, maintain momentum and boost motivation.

Middle School Girls and STEM: Using digital tools to close the gender gap

The intentional use of digital tools in middle schools has the potential to prepare and inspire the next generation of great female designers, builders, thinkers and creators.

Nine Key Lessons from the Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School Learning Differences Program

Friday Institute found nine key lessons from CCMMS’s Learning Differences program implementation that may help future schools and districts as they design their implementation strategies.

The Opportunity to Dream: How an Early Learning Network Implemented the Liberatory Design Process

This case study examines in-depth the participating districts in Cohort 3 of the 2021 Early Learning Network (ELN), an inter-district network that was developed and implemented by The Innovation Project (TIP) and The Friday Institute and focused on redesigning learning environments to better address the early learning needs of vulnerable children.

Personalized Learning in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

In this case study, three Personalized Learning Schools in Charlotte-Mecklenburg share their experiences in integrating personalizing learning.

Principal & Coach Focus: Closing Out the School Year and Bridging to the Next

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, these slides explore key considerations including students’ academic and social and emotional learning, how to engage leadership teams and stakeholders and what is needed to prepare students with their individual needs and experiences.

Principal & Coach Focus: Coaching and Guiding Teachers in Academic and Social & Emotional Learning

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides explore strategies for leading and coaching teachers and staff to support both academic and social-emotional learning and creating opportunities for feedback and reflection with teachers to support all students.

Principal & Coach Focus: Supporting Teachers and Students (Equity, Feedback and Collaboration Among Students)

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides focus on strategies for supporting instruction, social and emotional learning (SEL), strong communication with the school community, and coaching and leading from afar.

Prioritizing Personalized Learning: District Recommendations

What does it take? What do district leaders need to do to prioritize meaningful steps forward toward personalizing learning?

Recommendations for Instructional Leaders

Related to the NCDPI and NC State Board of Education’s Instructional Principles for Remote Teaching & Learning, this white paper provides action steps and guidance for principals, coaches, counselors, social workers, media coordinators and others who support educators and staff in their transition to remote learning.

Reflecting and Learning From This Experience

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides recap the best practices, resources, and updated information from the April 2020 sessions, as well as consider how we can move forward into August, the 2020-2021 school year, and beyond.

Remote Learning for Secondary Educators: Increasing Student Interest and Engagement

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides explore differentiation strategies that will deepen students’ interest, comprehension, and engagement with course content in a remote learning environment.

Rethinking Learning in the Digital Literacy Classroom

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides cover a few simple technology tools to fuel independence, create routines to simplify teaching and structure minilessons for elementary students that can be used across the curriculum.

Rocky River Elementary School Case Study – An Implementation of a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Curriculum and Sensory Integration Tools for All Students

This case study showcases the design thinking and continuous improvement process at Rocky River Elementary school and the keys to success in implementing social and emotional learning and sensory integration techniques.

Scaffolding Instruction With English Learners

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides analyze dynamic and situated instructional supports that develop K-12 English Learners’, and all students’, ability to engage with and make meaning of disciplinary concepts through interactive language practices.

Strengthening Digital Literacy Skills: Eight Pathways for More Student Choice

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides focus on sharing resources and strategies that grade 6-12 educators could use in a synchronous or asynchronous platform to close-out the 2019-2020 school year.

Stress, Trauma and Resilience: Helping Students Manage the Challenges of Remote Learning

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides examine research-based strategies that can help students with stress, trama and resilience.

Student Voice and Choice in a Remote Learning Environment

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides explore the process, pedagogy, and practice of differentiating instruction for secondary students in a remote learning environment.

Supporting Learner Variability in the Classroom Through Micro-credentials

This white paper introduces a set of nine micro-credentials developed by The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and Digital Promise Global’s Learner Variability Project (LVP) to help educators build their capacity to address learner variability in their classrooms.

This Is Your Brain on Stress: Navigating Uncharted Waters

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides explore how the brain reacts to stress and how educators can help to manage this stress through a variety of brain-based strategies.

We Are All Language Teachers: Supporting English Learners Across the Content Areas

Archived from our 2020 Remote Learning Support for NC Educators series in partnership with NCDPI, this video and accompanying slides explore the need for cross-disciplinary support for K-12 English Learners (ELs); introduce the theory informing Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL); and share research-based instructional practices that support ELs’ literacy and language growth.

What’s the Value of a Learning Differences MOOC-Ed?

In this paper we consider the value that educators find through their participation in a Learning Differences Massive Online Open Course for Educators (MOOC-Eds) and examine the design elements of the MOOC-Ed that supported their growth and impact on practice.