UW INSPIRE
District & School-Based Learning Labs
The Model
A Learning Lab is a model for job-embedded professional learning that utilizes the Learning Cycle, developed over the past 15 years with UW College of Education faculty, and partners at multiple universities. The Learning Cycle is a structure for supporting groups of educators in learning to grow their craft in collaboration with one another. It is a useful tool for:
• Exploring new ideas and putting them into practice immediately |
Sustainability
The Learning Labs model is meant to be a tool for professional learning communities to take up as their own. The goal is for the practitioner teams to grow their capacity to lead Labs independently. Many regional schools and districts that began with small university supported enterprises are now significantly growing the numbers of teachers involved in Labs. These schools and districts are also increasingly able to facilitate Labs with internal leaders– with intellectual support from university-based facilitators and the growing network of practitioners leading this work in the region. It is this shared ownership and practitioner leadership that renders Labs sustainable– by making it possible to expand the network of people using Learning Labs to grow ambitious teaching practices.
The Labs model has been used by schools in these regional districts:
Kent, Federal Way, Seattle, Blaine, Edmonds, Sedro-Woolley, Nooksack Valley, Renton, Quil Ceda Tulalip, Burlington, Yelm, Auburn, Riverview, & Evergreen
Our Role
|
For more information contact Deborah Massachi (massachi@uw.edu).