Global Cities Education Network

A network of Asian and North American city education systems designed to collaboratively identify, examine, and adapt internationally benchmarked solutions to common problems of practice.

Denver Hong KongHouston MelbourneLexington Seoul Seattle ShanghaiToronto Singapore

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Global Cities Education Network

Goals of Working Group on Scaling Up Effective 21stCentury Teaching

•Understand how a range of GCEN cities, including Shanghai, are creating systemic processes and structures of professional learning for teachers to continuously improve teaching and learning

•Understand the forms of professional learning cites are implementing to help teachers acquire pedagogies needed to develop students’ 21stcentury skills

•Develop initial strategies for further collaborative and individual work toward development of a plan for systemic improvements in

their professional learning systems

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Lessons Learned

1. Every teacher is consistently involved in collaboration with other teachers at his/her school aimed at improving student learning.

2. The education system provides or creates access to effective professional learning opportunities for all teachers in addition to school-based collaborative learning.

3. Every teacher is provided sufficient time during their regularly compensated working hours to engage in professional learning.

4. Teachers’ ongoing professional learning is incentivized through well-articulated career ladders.

5. The school system incentivizes the recruitment and retention of effective teachers new to the system.

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Lessons Learned

6. The school system leverages partnerships with institutions of higher learning and relevant workplaces to support teachers’ professional learning.7. School and teacher leaders, middle managers and system leaders are all engaged in regular, structured collaborative learning with peers focused on problems of practice relevant to their position within the school system.8. The school system supports, incentivizes, and rewards teachers’ efforts to thoughtfully develop and test pedagogical innovations.9. The school system deploys a process for evaluating teachers’ performance and growth geared primarily toward providing feedback that is useful in improving the teacher’s pedagogical capacity and the learning of students specifically in his/her school.

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