Our EIR grant explores advancing social-emotional learning (SEL) integration with rigorous content to enable educators to create supportive, responsive learning environments through a whole-school professional learning model.
Taking the time to better understand and address existing perceptions, practices, and contextual factors can help create the conditions for successful implementation of new initiatives. In 2021, NTC was awarded a highly competitive federal Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant to pursue the following inquiry question:
If we intentionally integrate social and emotional learning into rigorous instruction, how will that lead to improved social and emotional competencies and increased student achievement, especially in our priority populations?
To find out, we are working with partners in rural Minnesota, Alabama, and New York City to design whole-school approaches to SEL-based, instructionally focused coaching and professional learning for teachers and leaders.
An important first step was to help grant leaders at partner sites better understand the local context — the lay of the land and the growing conditions — for our collaborative SEL work.
Our EIR grant focuses on catalyzing a whole-school instructional coaching model in rural and and urban settings to use Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to empower educators to collaborate, refine teaching practices, and drive student success across the school.
PLCs can be a powerful lever for collaborative professional learning IF they are implemented with intention and fidelity.
We’ve supported our EIR grant partners to reconfigure how their PLCs operate — from a compliance and administrative orientation to providing opportunities for invigorating professional work. As one NTC program lead observed: “When they realized what a PLC could be, they were eager to make the shifts.”
