Professional learning for equity.
As an experienced professional learning team, we know that every school, district, or organization has its own diverse community and specific set of needs. Instead of a one size fits all approach, we work with our partners to design a professional learning plan that meets them where they’re at. Our work is grounded in clear, actionable goals and outcomes for all learners—youth and adults.
While schools and youth-serving organizations continue to deal with the impacts of the pandemic, it’s more important than ever to have targeted professional learning that is grounded in equity and inclusion.
Want to learn more about what our expert team can do for you?
We work with schools, districts, and organizations across Massachusetts and beyond.
How we can support you
A partnership with WriteBoston can look a few different ways. For the most impact, we embed a coach into a school or district for 1-3 days per week through the duration of one or more school years. For shorter-term projects, we consider your available time and resources and offer customized workshops with or without implementation support.
Professional learning support can include:
A coach collaborates with educators—both new and experienced—to teach their content through targeted literacy strategies (writing, of course, but listening, speaking, and reading as well). These methods promote students’ critical thinking and meaning making. Coaches provide resources and support to keep teachers learning and improving their practice. What coaching looks like can vary:
- A coach meets one-on-one with teachers during planning periods to help develop units and lessons, create assessments, and devise effective teaching strategies. The coach then follows up in the classroom with co-teaching or observation.
- A coach meets weekly with a department or teacher teams to provide workshops, reflect on student work, and develop and align school-wide language and practices.
- A coach facilitates school-wide professional development on a particular aspect of literacy across the curriculum.
Read about a successful coaching partnership at Boston Community Leadership Academy.
Schools and districts that employ embedded coaches know that coaching can be demanding—and often isolating. With an expert staff of instructional leaders who possess extensive coaching experience, WriteBoston is able to support school-based coaches in their daily work of translating literacy best practices into actionable supports and strategies that can be shared with classroom teachers.
Tasked with wearing multiple hats, coaching requires a body of content knowledge around instruction broadly, and literacy specifically. At the same time, effective coaches also know how to work with adults to advance their learning. That can be a tall order, even for the most skilled educators.
Based on the needs of our partners, WriteBoston strengthens the capacity of school and district coaches around both content and coaching strategies that enable them to deepen their impact on classroom instruction.
Read about a successful partnership that includes coaching-the-coach support.
Professional development done well—responsive to authentic needs, deeply tied to implementation, and delivered with an awareness of who’s in the classroom—can lead to real change. WriteBoston provides workshops on a broad range of topics, all tailored or created specifically for the particular context of the partner.
WriteBoston pairs skillful workshops with implementation support such as modeling, co-planning sessions, and short-term coaching, to ensure that the practices and strategies at the core of the workshops become a part of daily classroom instruction and truly reach students.
We support educators across disciplines and content areas, with the knowledge that developing strong literacy skills happens across department and school buildings.
As an external partner, we have the unique opportunity to maintain a strategic focus on literacy in all its forms—and to ensure that the work of educators across all levels of the school ecosystem (teachers, building coaches, principals and district leaders) are aligned, coordinated and supporting powerful instructional practices in the classroom.
This work can include administrator versions of teacher/coach workshops, support aligning evaluation with instructional best practices, learning walks and literacy audits all geared towards creating impact and coherence across schools and districts.
