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Home > Teachers & Administrators > Professional Learning

Professional Learning

High-quality professional learning is an integral part of a comprehensive talent management system that develops, supports, and grows educators throughout their careers.

In Rhode Island, we believe that high-quality professional learning (HQPL) consists of coherent learning experiences that are relevant, purposeful, systematic, and structured over a sustained period of time with the goal of improving and building upon educators' practices and student outcomes. HQPL enables educators to impact student learning and well-being through the acquisition and application of knowledge, skills, and abilities that address the whole child. HQPL conforms to best practices in research and relates directly to the educator's professional context through which the learning is applied.

This summer, RIDE completed an internal analysis of the 2017-18 SurveyWorks responses with a focus on questions pertaining to professional learning. Please see our newly published infographic with key findings from this analysis. We hope to continue to use this structure in the years ahead to better understand the professional learning landscape across Rhode Island schools.

2017-18 SurveyWorks Professional Learning Analysis Infographic

RIPLS
Tools & Resources
Educator Course Network (ECN)

RI Professional Learning Standards (RIPLS)

NEW RIPLS Document Published with Council Endorsement

RIDE is committed to helping our schools and districts strengthen their professional learning systems and practices. As such, we are excited to share the Rhode Island Professional Learning Standards (RIPLS) document that was endorsed by the Council on Elementary and Secondary Education in October 2018. As you begin to unpack and implement the RIPLS with your local teams, we encourage you to review our supporting resources and to reach out to the RIDE team directly with questions at PL@ride.ri.gov.

RIPLS Tools & Resources

Implementation of the RIPLS is the first and necessary step in achieving the type of foundation needed to impact educator and student outcomes. To this end, the development of high-quality professional learning systems and learning experiences requires a variety of tools and resources to support LEAs throughout the process. The RIDE team, in partnership with stakeholders across RI and national organizations, have developed the following tools to complement the RIPLS document as LEAs continue to develop and refine local professional learning systems.

RIPLS Audit Tool

This Audit Tool is a strategically-designed companion document for the RIPLS. Its purpose is to support teams of educators and district leaders in conducting an audit of local professional learning and the systems that contribute to this work. Auditing is one strategy to improve the effectiveness of local professional learning systems and practices. We hope this tool becomes a resource in making professional learning relevant and valuable for all educators so they can more effectively support our students in achieving outstanding outcomes.

RIPLS Audit Tool

RIPLS Audit Tool Use-Case

An important part of developing tools for districts is to understand how they are used. These documented experiences can help other LEAs generate ways to use these tool in different contexts, while providing the RIDE team with opportunities to refine the overall tool. We are grateful for the partnership with Bristol Warren Public School District to develop our first documented use of the Audit Tool. The following use-case provides one example for how a district used the RIPLS Audit Tool to analyze a current professional learning initiative and to inform future refinements for this on-going initiative. This specific case is meant to engage readers in dialogue and to generate ideas for using the Audit Tool in a range of settings.

Audit Tool Use Case: Bristol-Warren Public School District

Professional Learning Initiatives & RIPLS Crosswalks

The RIPLS are grounded in existing research and are aligned with key concepts found in strong examples of professional learning. We have developed crosswalks that map Rhode Island-specific professional learning initiatives to the RIPLS. It is our hope that these crosswalks will help users to understand what the RIPLS could look like in practice.

Induction coaching is a professional learning initiative where an effective educator with the right disposition and skill-set “coaches” a beginning teacher through observation, feedback, and goal-setting. The coach’s purpose is to accelerate beginning teacher effectiveness to increase student achievement by providing high-quality, data-driven, and instruction-focused supports.

Induction Coaching Crosswalk

For general questions related to professional learning, please email PL@ride.ri.gov.

Educator Course Network (ECN)

Educators deserve access to high-quality learning experiences that are relevant, differentiated, purposeful, and sustained in order to improve and build upon their practice throughout their careers. The ECN is the lever to create such access.

Launching in the spring of 2019, the ECN will be a marketplace for districts to access high-quality professional learning offerings from vendors whose work aligns with the RI Professional Learning Standards (RIPLS) and meets the criteria for RIDE's endorsement. It is our hope that the ECN will provide educators with valuable opportunities to improve their practice by augmenting what is available locally.

For general questions related to professional learning, please email PL@ride.ri.gov.

From Commissioner Wagner's January 25, 2019 Field Memo

In the December 7 Field Memo we invited interested professional learning providers to respond to our Request for Information (RFI) so that we could better understand the perspectives of potential vendors. We are excited to share that we received over fifteen quality RFIs from both local and national organizations. The RFI process confirmed that we are, indeed, asking the right types of questions to vendors and helped us clarify and improve the questions themselves.

We are confident that our revised application will elicit information that districts, schools, and teachers can use to make informed choices about how they choose to spend their precious professional learning dollars. Moreover, this application process will support the development of the ECN as a statewide professional learning marketplace that aligns with key aspects of the Rhode Island Professional Learning Standards.

Supporting RIDE in reviewing ECN applications, is an experienced group of educators from across Rhode Island. In the November 2 Field Memo we invited educators to apply to serve on the ECN advisory committee. We are excited to share that the following individuals were selected from an extremely talented and experienced pool of applicants:

1. Dawn August (Teacher, Barrington)

2. Don Cowart (Curriculum Director, Coventry)

3. Cassandra Johns (Teacher and Principal Residency Network candidate, Providence)

4. Stephanie Primiani (Central Office Administrator, Blackstone Valley Prep)

5. Awilda Reinoso (Brown Urban Education Program candidate, RI State House Intern)

6. Amanda Williams (Assistant Principal, RI School of the Deaf)

7. Suzette Wordell (Principal, Tiverton)

We are thrilled to have them support us in this initial launch of the ECN. The learning acquired from this initial launch will inform future application submission and review processes for the ECN.

The application is now open. All interested professional learning providers must electronically submit their completed ECN application by Friday, February 22, 2019 to PL@ride.ri.gov.

**NEW** 2019 Educator Course Network Application

Content Specific Professional Learning Offerings

All content-specific professional learning offerings can be found on the Instruction, Assessment and Curriculum landing page under the content title located on the menu to the right of the page.