Teaching & Learning Alliance-Supporting Academic Leaders and Coaches

Welcome to Teaching and Learning Alliance

Through a dynamic partnership model, we support the development of exemplary educators, visionary school leaders, and high-achieving students.

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For Leaders

We are the partner to help you lead through instructional change.

For Coaches

Coaches are the catalyst for change in our classrooms.

For Teachers

Good teaching has the greatest impact on student learning outcomes.

Our Impact on Education

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What Our Clients Are Saying

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Resources for Success

Keep Collaborating: Why, What & How of Looking at Student Work

Books For Teachers Lesson Ideas Reading

Writing your own Decodables

Education For Teachers

Preparing your Hearts, Minds & Classrooms for Back to School

For Coaches For Teachers Tech Tools

Digital Tools for Instructional Coaching: What Will We Keep Moving Forward?

@teachlearnorg Instagram Feed

teachinglearningalliance

Aug 12

Oral storytelling, interactive writing, play and literacy learning. A great summer institute with grade K & 1 in Nashua.

teachinglearningalliance

Aug 4

☀️It's a scorcher today! We are keeping busy preparing for the cooler days of fall. 🍂

💙 But not all preparation is heavy lifting. Staying current in our own reading lives is important too. Here's a taste of our #graphicnovel book club choices. Have you read any of these titles ? 📘

teachinglearningalliance

Jun 16

At TLA, we talk with our hands 🙌🏼. ☀️Our elementary team came together, reflecting on our learning from this past year to grow our own thinking and learning. 💙

teachinglearningalliance

May 11

📊 Are you creating and using microprogressions in your coaching or teaching?

✅ Here are three sample that were made after looking at student writing in second, first and kindergarten.

💙 We love these tools because they help build our own teacher toolkit, support student ownership and transfer. They are adaptable and usable in conferences, small groups and even whole group lessons.

teachinglearningalliance

May 3

📚We are always looking for texts that will get our kids hooked. 🤓

Sometimes that’s a funny text, a character who is a little mischievous, or a great series. Here are some that are currently capturing the imagination of a range of readers in our classrooms. 💙

teachinglearningalliance

May 2

🤓 Looking out at a sea of blank faces? Here’s a quick tip. 💡

🙋🏽‍♀️ Instead of asking the class “Who remembers?” or “Who can tell me?”
✅ Try TASKING the class “Tell me about _____ or even better “Turn to your neighbor and share with them about _______”

💙 This gives an opportunity for all kids to participate rather than a select few.
Simple shifts in language can make a big impact on student learning.💥

teachinglearningalliance

Apr 29

✅ We have been working in many schools and classrooms helping teachers understand how to bring the science of reading into their instruction in simple but powerful ways. 💥

💙 So grateful to continue growing our own practices and we support teachers and students.

💡We made this overly simple view of #thesixshifts to help us and thought it might support you too! Let us know - how are you incorporating the shifts in your teaching ? 🤓

teachinglearningalliance

Apr 20

👀 Looking to check out some new titles for your middle grades readers ?! ✋

📚 These are a few we are reading during spring break here in Massachusetts. Look out for ideas 💡 for these titles in future posts. ✅

teachinglearningalliance

Apr 13

📣 University Faculty: You're invited to a Free Webinar: Foundations of Reading: Lessons Learned

🗓 Join us on May 17th from 7pm - 8:30pm EST. This webinar is designed to support university faculty with:

🖊 Open Response: tips & strategies
📝 Multiple Choice: anticipating and recognizing test-bias

Link in bio

teachinglearningalliance

Apr 5

📆It’s April, which means test-taking time in schools. Have you noticed how things have shifted in classrooms?

We are revisiting this text from Ellen Oliver Keene about the pillars of engagement. We summarize them like this:

🤔 Curiosity
💕 Connection
🌍Community
🎨Creativity

⏰ This time of year can feel challenging for students and teachers alike. We invite you to pause with us and think about these four big categories. We might not be able to change the circumstances around the test, but we might ask:

✨ Where is there a time for children can ask questions and explore?
📖 How can we continue to promote story telling across the day?
🙃 Where are their opportunities for classroom play ?
💫 How can we provide creative moments of messiness in the midst of the intense structure ?

teachinglearningalliance

Mar 29

Here in Massachusetts it’s below freezing today. 🥶So to warm up we are recommending some favorite spring read aloud titles. 📚

teachinglearningalliance

Mar 25

😎Are you playing Wordle with your students yet?

🔠 This Phonics Friday, our very own Stephanie Maze-Hsu is sharing with us her take on the popular game as she has adjusted it for k-3 students with :

🌟CVC words,
💫CVCe words,
✨four letter words with consonant blends & digraphs.

📄Feel free to make a copy of this jam board to use in your own classroom. Link in bio !

Let us know how it goes! 💙

teachinglearningalliance

Mar 16

🔋 Looking at Student Work is so powerful. We used a Thin Slicing Protocol (adapted from @tcrwp) with groups of teachers teams and then used the information that we gathered to create a sequence of short strategy groups for kids. 👩‍👦‍👦

😎One example is that we looked at first graders Non Fiction writing with the sense of “Detail”

📝 We sorted kids writing into piles and then noticed and named what the students who were successful WERE doing.

Using those observations we made a trajectory of skills.

1. Drawing details ✍️
2. Labeling details 🏷
3. Using specific content vocabulary 📝
4. Twin sentences to say more 👯‍♂️

Then we went into the classroom and pulled a small group and saw immediate transfer! 💙

Are you looking at student work with your colleagues? What protocols do you use to help you? Want to find ours? Check out our blog post here: https://tinyurl.com/4sfdp5ts

teachinglearningalliance

Mar 2

📚It’s Read Across America today!

💙 Wherever you are, we hope you take time to grab a great title and read.
❓Not sure where to start. Check out our suggested titles.

https://linktr.ee/teachlearnorg

Tag us @teachinglearningalliance and let us know :
1. What you’re reading 📖
2. Where you’re reading 🏡
3. Who you’re reading with 👧🏽

teachinglearningalliance

Mar 1

🎉 Today we celebrate the start of Women’s History Month.

👩🏽‍🏫 Teaching is a profession of intelligent, compassionate and powerhouse women (76% of teachers are women).

🌎 You are not just teaching history (or literacy or math or science) but you are making history as you shape the lives of the children around you.

teachinglearningalliance

Feb 28

6️⃣ Six syllable types. Do you know them all?
✅Use VELCRO - to help those types stick

🪧When teaching students how to read a deep knowledge of these six types is powerful in helping to find the parts in words that students know.

💙Want to learn more? Keep following along.

teachinglearningalliance

Dec 20

❄️ It's the most wonderful time of the year. ❄️

📘 This school year has not been what many of us expected. Yet, our school leaders, teachers, students and families have demonstrated such commitment and compassion. Partnering with you is one of our greatest joys.

🎁 Wishing you and yours a healthy and happy holiday season.

teachinglearningalliance

Oct 25

🎉 Creating micro-progression is a powerful way to look at student work

💻In our latest blog post we unpack the why, what and how of looking at student work, including a brief update on making micro-progressions to support the thin-slicing protocol. 📘

teachinglearningalliance

Oct 14

😷Working in schools still feels different this year. But so thankful to be in person supporting coaches and teachers as we implement best literacy practices for kids. 💙

📸Here are a few snapshots of the work in Braintree Public Schools from today.

teachinglearningalliance

Sep 23

💡There’s a big buzz around decodable readers and how to effectively use them to support students’ application of phonetic principles.

➡️ Swipe to learn a pretty simple process for how you can create your own decodable in small group instruction to support kids learning goals.

💙Are you using decodable in your small group instruction?