Professional Learning Redefined: An Evidence-based Guide

You’ve just found your new comprehensive guide to designing powerful professional learning!

Maybe you’ve run out of fresh ideas to help teachers improve their instructional practice. Maybe you need some help to feel as though your PLCs, coaching and workshops are making an impact. You’ve picked up the right book!

Isabel Sawyer and Marisa Ramirez-Stukey have studied the research on effective professional learning from the past 25 years and distilled these findings into this practical guide for the numerous roles of educators charged with supporting teachers. Readers will learn to construct a multi-year implementation framework and also

• Facilitative techniques that support powerful professional learning
• Planning tools to shift instruction at the school and district level
• Functional characteristics of a successful facilitator able to combine content and context of learning

Full of protocols, strategies, and case studies, this book dissects the key components of professional learning, like coherence, connections, and content, and examines each through an evidence-based lens.  

Isabel Sawyer is a Regional Director at Center for the Collaborative Classroom. She leads a team of educators in partnering with districts and other educational organizations across the country. In addition, Isabel presents keynotes, workshops, presentations, and professional development for teachers, literacy coaches, and administrators. Previously, Isabel worked as a lead instructional coach for Albemarle County Public Schools and as an instructional coordinator in Charlottesville City Schools, Virginia. Finally, Isabel serves as an on-line adjunct instructor at the University of Virginia. Isabel holds her PhD from the University of Virginia.

Dr. Marisa Ramirez Stukey is a Regional Director with the Center for the Collaborative Classroom. She received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in teacher education and professional learning and a Master’s Degree in Reading Education, both from the University of Florida. She is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher with over fifteen years experience teaching in both elementary and higher education contexts, instructional coaching, and professional learning systems development. Her research interests focus on reading comprehension instruction and designing literacy professional learning. She has consulted with numerous school districts in developing change models and collaborative professional learning structures, particularly to shift literacy instruction. She lives in Gainesville, Florida with her husband and young daughter.