a differentiated approach to supporting teacher professional learning and leadership in our public schools
Links Research to Practice
Teachers often feel that there is a gap between what they learn about in educational research and theory taught in school or through traditional venues of PD and their everyday instructional practices. Many teachers feel that the research they are learning about is not relevant to their practice and therefore tend to fall back on familiar ways of teaching (Vanderlinde & Van Braak, 2010); however, participants in TLCs come together voluntarily to address problems of practice with which the group is concerned. They reflect on what the research says and carefully consider how to apply it to their own classroom practice (T. Nelson et al., 2008).
Since the HLC model is a TLC that is anchored in the theory of a Community of Practice (CoP), it creates a safe place for teachers to address problems of practice by linking the research to their instructional decisions.
