What if someone walked into your office and handed you a magic wand for professional learning—one that would ensure that all of your teachers receive regular, high-quality professional learning that results in improved teaching and learning across your system? While a professional learning wand doesn’t exist, Rivet Education is on a quest to create a one-stop shop that provides education leaders with the support, talent, and expertise needed to plan and execute high-quality professional learning plans.
Every day, state and local education leaders and teachers face various challenges in creating the conditions that ensure all students have consistent access to high-quality instruction. A growing body of research shows that providing educators with high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) and the professional learning needed to use those materials well improves student achievement and teacher practice.
While these investments reap big rewards for teachers and students, we also recognize that they require a lot of time, money, and work. Providing teachers with the professional learning they need to use their HQIM skillfully is challenging. But why? What makes providing this type of professional learning so hard?
- Shortage of Expertise: Today’s new standards and instructional materials require a substantial shift in teacher practice— a shift for which their own education and teacher preparation programs likely did not adequately prepare them 1 Short, J. & Hirsh, S. (2020). The Elements: Transforming Teaching through Curriculum-Based Professional Learning. Carnegie Corporation of New York. Retrieved from https://media.carnegie.org/filer_public/47/94/47947a81-4fdf-421b-a5e8-fbb211898ee0/elements_report_november_2020.pdf.. To support teachers in using their HQIM effectively, school and school system leaders need to have deep expertise in the materials and how to provide ongoing, curriculum-based professional learning (CBPL) to their staff. However, this expertise is often hard to find within the school or district because these materials are new to everyone. Therefore, leaders must seek outside expertise and support or risk failure with their new investment.
- Shortage of Support: Further complicating the shortage of expertise, school and school system leaders often struggle to find and contract with qualified professional learning providers who can add capacity to their professional learning team. Rivet has uncovered several reasons for this.
- SEAs and LEAs lack reliable information about the quality of providers and services in the marketplace.
- The RFPs SEAs and LEAs release to procure HQIM or CBPL services concrete objectives and scopes of work, resulting in low-quality proposals and, ultimately, poor-quality services or materials.
- High-quality partners, like those in Rivet’s Professional Learning Partner Guide, do not have an efficient way of being notified of RFPs related to HQIM or CBPL services.
- Shortage of Talent: Providing high-quality professional learning remains a largely elbow-to-elbow, people-intensive endeavor. Moreover, it requires coaches and facilitators to have expertise in various areas such as individual curricula, content and content pedagogy, adult learning, and implementation science. As demand for high-quality instructional materials increases, providers of curriculum-based professional learning are struggling to find enough qualified talent to service their SEA and LEA clients, and this issue will likely worsen over time.
Fortunately, there are tools available to solve these challenges. Rivet Education is excited to announce the launch of RivetCONNECT. This one-stop shop connects educators to the support, talent, and expertise needed to plan and execute high-quality professional learning.
RivetCONNECT provides just-in-time support to increase your capacity to:
- Maximize the promise and impact of high-quality instructional materials:
An on-demand webinar series provides quick and effective videos that build educators’ capacity to implement high-quality materials effectively through curriculum-based professional learning. - Hire great talent to support the implementation of high-quality instructional materials: Rivet saves precious time and resources by applying our expertise and experience in HQIM and CBPL to recruit and vet candidates seeking professional learning-based roles, resulting in the right matches for your open positions.
- Simplify and enhance the procurement of high-quality instructional materials and professional learning: Rivet focuses on ensuring that your procurement process, from drafting the RFP to selecting vendors, solves the problems you seek to solve. A strong RFP results in a strong match with vendors that meet your needs.
- Identify and select partners to ensure the long-term success of your high-quality instructional materials: We take the guesswork out of finding the right professional learning partner by providing a free and vetted list of the best professional learning providers in the country.
Visit RivetCONNECT today to learn more about how we can support you in gaining the expertise, talent, and support to plan and execute high-quality professional learning.