The Teacher-Led Professional Learning website is a project of the Pahara-Aspen Teacher-Leader Fellows program. In 2012, our inaugural class of fellows began working together to enhance the teaching profession and strengthen the educational outcome of our nation’s K–12 students. We represent a diverse blend of experiences—including union leadership, classroom teaching, education policy advocacy, and more.
Our goal is to help teachers, their schools, unions, and districts implement collaborative, job-embedded professional learning that leads to better student learning by developing and using the skills of involved teacher-leaders.
Our strategy includes three strands:
- Build Capacity: Develop/collect content and process guidance to achieve teacher-led professional learning, pulling together the work of others and adding our own work and advice about how to achieve greater implementation of teacher-led professional learning.
- Build Awareness: Build awareness among teachers to demand and lead job-embedded professional learning.
- Implement: Implement in schools, directly or by influencing others, while catalyzing additional implementation by others.
Teacher-Led Professional Learning Project Team Members:
Audrey Soglin: executive director, Illinois Education Association
Mark Sass: social sciences teacher, Legacy High School, Denver, CO; 2014 Hope Street Group National Teacher Fellow
Cynthia Robinson-Rivers: former director of Teacher Retention and Recognition, D.C. Public Schools
Chris Poulos: Spanish teacher, Joel Barlow High School, Redding, CT; Teacher-Leader in Residence, CT State Department of Education; vice president, National Network of State Teachers of the Year; Connecticut Teacher of the Year 2007
David Low: high school science teacher, The Sound School, New Haven, CT; 2013 New Haven Teacher of the Year; vice president of high schools, New Haven Federation of Teachers
Tony Klemmer: founder and president, National Academy of Advanced Teacher Education and The Center for Better Schools
Emily Ayscue Hassel: co-director, Public Impact
Celine Coggins: founder and chief executive officer, Teach Plus
Also Contributing to our Group’s Early Discussions:
Andrew Vanden Heuvel: physics teacher, 2011 Michigan Online Teacher of the Year
Paul Toner: former president, Massachusetts Teachers Association
Kerrie Dallman: president, Colorado Education Association
Jean Clements: president, Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association
Teacher-Led Professional Learning Website:
Editor-in-Chief: Lucy Steiner, consulting manager, Public Impact
Web management and copyediting provided by Beverley Tyndall and Sharon Kebschull Barrett, and research assistance provided by Brendan Yorke, all of Public Impact