professional development

For the past 9 years, Collaborative has served as trusted advisor to the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation by providing critical management of their member networks, research and analysis on seminal publications, and coordination services for conferences that bring to together practitioners, policymakers, and key stakeholders.

Collaborative supports the Mott Foundation’s work on national and statewide initiatives, as well as managing all aspects of the Statewide Afterschool Network, including the Web site, ongoing conference calls, Webinars, and marketing pieces. In addition, Collaborative partnered with the Mott Foundation to develop a Time, Learning, and Afterschool Task Force, whose primary goal was to develop recommendations that will integrate afterschool programs and formal schooling. The result, A New Day for Learning, is an influential publication that rethinks how child and youth use their time for learning.

The Council of Chief State School Officers sought out Collaborative to advise on member network support, Web site content, and online tool and technology production, particularly in the development of a tool to help professionals network.

Collaborative developed an award-winning, fully comprehensive online network development tool that enabled professionals to connect, pose dilemmas, and learn in public and private forums. Specifically, we provided monthly content for the site, identified main themes and aided in the overall maintenance of the site. Our team also developed interactive tools for the Web site to further enhance the learning experience of site visitors. These tools simulated live assessments in system redesign and strategic planning.

The Web site was awarded the 2006 Best in Class Interactive Media Award which honors individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement in Web site design and development. The Web site was also recognized as an Official Honoree of The 2005 Webby Awards. The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence in Web design, creativity, usability and functionality.

Collaborative helped the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) demonstrate to key stakeholders throughout the state the coordinated system of professional development opportunities for education leaders. This was particularly important to legislators and other state policy makers as they make decisions about continual and expanded support of professional development statewide. The development of an online statewide mapping tool of professional development opportunities was also important to education leaders themselves, as a tool to navigate their professional development options.

The online mapping tools was accompanied by a broad-based communications strategy Collaborative developed for the Department, focused on increasing understanding and awareness of this system of professional development options as well as other efforts at the state level to increase learning opportunities for all children.

Collaborative supported the National Staff Development Council in its efforts to become the “go-to” resource on professional learning by conducting a  comprehensive communications audit and making recommendations on ways to communicate the organization’s core messages stronger. The communications audit enabled the organization to conduct strategic conversations that led to significant changes in how the board of directors viewed the value of communications as well as the staffing structures and roles and responsibilities of key communications positions.

In addition to providing recommendations on the Foundation’s overall communications and knowledge management strategy, Collaborative supports the National Education Association Foundation primarily  through its Closing the Achievement Gaps Initiative. Since 2008, Collaborative has helped to design, facilitate and document the initiative’s annual convening that brings together school- and system-level practitioners, union leaders, and community-based leaders to work towards closing the achievement gap.

In 2009, Collaborative led the content creation and faciltiation of the advisory committee that oversaw the production of initiative’s publication that called for new and strategic roles for teachers unions in the creation and implementation of human capital management systems.

Collaborative provided key communications strategy and support at a critical time of leadership transition within the National Art Education Association (NAEA). In support of dynamic new leadership, Collaborative redesigned the organization’s Web site, in ways that provided a fresh and innovative public brand for the organization and encouraged new levels of membership engagement and learning, all organized around key strategic goals of advocacy, community, learning, and research and knowledge. Collaborative helped to design, facilitate and document a yearlong series of strategic conversations in efforts to support the building of ownership and engagement of the board of directors, The pinnacle of those strategic conversations culminated in a three-day retreat at the Aspen Institute, where NAEA brought together education policy leaders, along with researchers and leading educators in the arts to re-examine the role of visual arts in learning—both in school and across the community. The resulting documentation from the Aspen Institute discussions, called “Learning in a Visual Age” has provided a framework for NAEA’s ongoing engagement, partnership and advocacy efforts.

Massachusetts 2020 turned to Collaborative to plan and execute their annual Summit in celebration of expanded learning time (ELT) in Massachusetts, to recognize leaders in the field and to provide professional development to staff and administrators in ELT schools.

Collaborative helped Massachusetts 2020 plan and facilitate their Expanded Learning Time Summit, which brings together Expanded Learning Time schools and potential schools to celebrate the work accomplished by the state. Collaborative oversaw the Summit’s logistical needs and scheduling, disseminated invitations and a post-summit evaluation, managed the online and on-site registration processes, and managed the design process and agenda and materials development. This meeting demonstrates Collaborative’s continued experience with developing and hosting meetings for educational endeavors across the country.

Collaborative advises the Arkansas Leadership Academy on issues ranging from curriculum design to implementation. The Academy charges Collaborative with the task of supporting professional development for superintendents throughout Arkansas. Collaborative facilitates on-going professional development for 30 superintendents in Arkansas focused on advancing systems change as part of the Arkansas Leadership Academy. Collaborative prepares agendas and coordinates leadership of training sessions. The yearlong effort included a three-day-long initial retreat, two on-site follow up sessions and the use of Web conferencing to introduce the participants to new ideas.