District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) is a national leader in supporting teachers—and it’s no coincidence that just a couple of years after the district introduced its unique professional learning framework, it is seeing big gains in student achievement.

The cornerstone of the district’s approach to professional learning is called “Learning together to Advance our Practice”—commonly referred to as LEAP. Through this model, DCPS teachers work with content-specific teams within their school to engage in weekly learning cycles. The model has three key parts:

  1. Weekly 90-minute seminars, when each team focuses on deepening their content knowledge and strengthening instructional practice;
  2. Regular, brief (15-minute) observations, when teachers showcase how they’re applying what they learned from the weekly seminar while their LEAP team leader observes them; and
  3. Regular debriefs between the teacher and their LEAP leader, when they reflect on the teacher’s growth and areas for improvement, and identify one skill to focus on the next week.

Read the full article on DC Public Schools at the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation