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What makes a good teacher?

By Learning Forward
December 2011
Vol. 32 No. 6
Phillips: Great teachers are the most important school-based ingredient for student success. So we’re committed to ensuring teachers have the supports and tools they need to continually improve their practice. As we do so, we’re listening closely to what teachers say and co-designing and researching new approaches with them. Through the Measures of Effective Teaching study, we’re working with 3,000 teachers in seven districts around the country to look at multiple measures for understanding what makes a good teacher so that all teachers can improve. We’ve also made deep investments in four sites — Memphis, Tenn.; Hillsborough County, Fla.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; and a group of charter management organizations in Los Angeles — that are dramatically rethinking how they recruit, develop, and retain teachers, particularly for

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Authors

Stephanie Hirsh

 

Vicki Phillips director of education, college ready, for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, talks with Stephanie Hirsh, Learning Forward’s executive director, about the foundation’s investment in effective teaching, and in particular about the role of professional learning.

References

Scholastic & the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (2010). Primary sources: America’s teachers on America’s schools. New York: Authors.

Wei, R.C., Darling-Hammond, L., Andree, A., Richardson, N., & Orphanos, S. (2009). Professional learning in the learning profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and abroad. Dallas, TX: NSDC. 


Learning Forward is the only professional association devoted exclusively to those who work in educator professional development. We help our members plan, implement, and measure high-quality professional learning so they can achieve success with their systems, schools, and students.


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