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few schools provide systematic, long-term, programs to help teachers master their craft. Pre-service training is brief, mentoring is spotty, one-time workshops abound. Independent schools have often made a virtue of giving teachers a classroom and wishing them well—autonomy to the able, too often "sink or swim."

The goal must be to provide ongoing professional development that moves an entire faculty forward, consistent with the school's vision and core values.

New teachers, whether experienced or not, participate in a three-year program—yes, three years—of thoughtfully scaffolded skills matched to the school's chosen direction for teaching and learning. Some topics reinforce the school's traditional strengths; others reflect the major strains of innovation

more than 35 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.

our studies show that teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on “process” (consisting of personal effort and effective strategies) rather than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in school and in life.

Why do some students give up when they encounter difficulty, whereas others who are no more skilled continue to strive and learn? One answer, I soon discovered, lay in people's beliefs about why they had failed.

STEM lessons don’t necessarily teach the specific content in math and science – they may apply content that has already been taught. The key point is whether a STEM program applies math and science concepts to solve an engineering challenge and provide students with opportunities to integrate learning.

At first glance, it appears that deciding what a STEM program should look like is an ongoing conundrum for the K-12 education world.

"School-age students may be fluent in using entertainment or communication technologies, but they need guidance to learn how to use these technologies to solve sophisticated thinking problems," Wang noted. "The school setting is the only institution that might create the needs to shape and facilitate students' technology experience. Once teachers introduce students to a new technology to support learning, they quickly learn how to use it."

However, when an entire class moves forward to study new skills and concepts without any individual adjustments in time or support, some students are doomed to fail.

What Differentiated Instruction Is–And Is Not: The Definition Of Differentiated Instruction

In this Education Week article, Connecticut educator Christopher Doyle worries that many educators are not taking very good care of themselves – not balancing the intense challenges of work with family, friends, love, sleep, vacations, exercise, good nutrition, emotional health, and civic engagement. “Like American society at large,” says Doyle, “ many of us are overworked, stretched thin financially, and torn between roles as spouses, parents, and employees… Not unlike other professionals devoted to nurture, such as doctors, teachers are measured – and measure themselves – against an idealized image of excellence that involves incessant work.”

Teachers occupy the middle to lower tiers of the American middle class – whose wages have been stagnant for some time.

Stressed, workaholic educators are not in the best position to help students achieve some kind of balance in their overscheduled lives.

The Turtle Art project, and the concept of “doing” or “making” before any explicit instruction has been given, is part of the school’s attempt to shake up its teaching. Lighthouse Community Charter has to cover the same standard curriculum as district schools, so teachers have to choose carefully the times when they’ll spend a little more time and creativity on a difficult subject.

“The concept of the coaching is that if we help someone with one or two projects, they may do more on their own.”

“I would much rather push for this kind of curriculum in schools serving low-income communities than in other schools because I think it will help students to gain their own voice, and a lot of the kind of character-building aspects that are intrinsic in this, but also to be exposed to new possibilities for the future,” Vanderwerff said.

So according to our "big tent" model of PBL, some of the newer "X-BLs" -- problem-, challenge- and design-based -- are basically modern versions of the same concept.

At BIE, we see project-based learning as a broad category which, as long as there is an extended "project" at the heart of it, could take several forms or be a combination of: Designing and/or creating a tangible product, performance or event Solving a real-world problem (may be simulated or fully authentic) Investigating a topic or issue to develop an answer to an open-ended question

We decided to call problem-based learning a subset of project-based learning -- that is, one of the ways a teacher could frame a project is "to solve a problem."

a Professional Learning Community is "a group of educators that meets regularly, shares expertise, and works collaboratively to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students."

A PLC is made up of "a school's professional staff members who continuously seek to find answers through inquiry and act on their learning to improve student learning.

Teachers who work in more supportive environments become more effective at raising student achievement on standardized tests over time than do teachers who work in less supportive environments.

1. Kids don’t start formal school until age seven.

2. The first day of school is all fun and games.

3. Finland schools don’t have subjects.