LIFT

The pandemic and its impacts on schools have created a classic chopportunity, at once revealing challenges and creating opportunities to reimagine instruction to meet the needs of all learners.

As schools seek to recover and accelerate learning for students, the need for innovation and collaboration by educators has never been stronger. Beyond the continued need for educator training and support, there will be a sustained imperative to innovate instruction in the midst of uncertainty, inequity, and change. New educational leadership, skills, teams, and strategies are essential as schools seek to adapt and re-adapt to a dynamic school landscape. The pandemic has shifted the landscape of American education -- some aspects of school and learning will forever be changed.

LIFT responds to this chopportunity by building and leveraging the expertise of educators and creating new partnerships which foster professional growth and improve student outcomes.

LIFT is designed to help educators help educators through intentional instructional partnership.

This LIFT Framework is an asynchronous self-paced professional learning path designed to allow any educator to build expertise to lead, teach, and support their peers to innovate instruction and effectively use digital tools and adapt to rapidly changing and dynamic learning environments. Educators integrate digital learning and teaching with research-based instructional practices including reflective professional collaboration, inclusive instructional design, social and emotional learning and culturally-responsive teaching. Developed in Washington State as an open education resource (OER), the LIFT Framework can be used and adapted without cost to educators and schools.

Educators who complete the LIFT Framework are empowered to serve as instructional partners who work with other colleagues to innovate and improve instruction either as peers or as part of teams. As instructional partners, educators expand their professional skill set to better collaborate with colleagues to design and implement innovative instruction and professional learning.

Instructional partnership does not require a new job role or description. Because any educator can complete this learning path, it extends and enhances educator capacity in their existing roles as a teacher, librarian, coach, counselor, paraprofessional, or administrator.

Educators who complete this learning path can provide schools and districts with an enhanced cadre of instructional leaders to meet current or future professional learning needs. By empowering educators already serving in existing assignments and roles, schools can efficiently build their capacity to support classroom teachers to ensure

• strategic alignment with district and school improvement plans,

• coordination with school and district leadership,

• efficiencies in planning and providing support to teachers, and

• sustained professional learning and support for educators.

Decades of research have demonstrated that coaching and instructional collaboration have a marked impact on both professional learning and student outcomes. Despite proof that professional collaboration makes a difference, instructional partnership is often overlooked or limited to formal coaching programs and roles. The LIFT Framework is designed to expand both the expertise and capacity of interested educators to provide peer-to-peer instructional support in schools and districts.

Classroom educators

While the challenges of remote and hybrid learning may eventually recede into memory, the impacts of the pandemic will leave an indelible mark on the classroom and student instruction. The shift to digital learning has created an explosion of solutions, training, and resources.

Challenges that existed before the pandemic were laid bare during remote and hybrid learning and will remain after students return to classrooms. Learner variability, social and emotional learning, and culturally responsive teaching require educators to proactively adapt and reimagine instruction to ensure all students not only recover, but accelerate their learning in the coming years.

Instructional partnership enables educators to support and work together to integrate new tools and strategies, designing instruction that addresses learner variability, social and emotional needs, and equity considerations.

Building leaders

As schools and classrooms return to normalcy, building leaders will necessarily be focused on logistics, student and staff safety, and redefining how school operates in the pandemic era. The challenges of providing educators with leadership in digital learning and instructional design will compete with sustaining pre-pandemic deliverables for school leadership and outcomes, dynamic guidance and procedural expectations from district and state, and attending to the physical and emotional needs of students and staff.

Instructional partnership complements the instructional leadership of building leaders by building educator capacity to understand and implement a variety of educational priorities including culturally responsive teaching, social and emotional learning, and integration of digital tools and services. Additionally, it builds leadership in situ, empowering existing staff to support colleagues in professional learning and instructional design.

District leaders

In addition to sharing many of the challenges faced by school leaders, district leaders and school systems are challenged by the scale and complexity of unprecedented change. The pandemic has also expanded community awareness of systemic inequities of access and opportunity across student populations. Despite the need for instructional leadership and support, many district leaders and programs face an array of priorities including:

• recovering and accelerating student learning,

• ensuring student access to both in-person and remote learning options,

• sustaining established student learning standards and curricula,

• innovating instruction to address learner variability and social and emotional learning, and

• adherence to federal, state, and local student safety, privacy and security guidelines.

Instructional partnership builds both school-based expertise and potential networks and teams to provide additional educator support and professional learning aligned with strategic plans and district programs.

Leadership in situ

The LIFT Framework builds leadership in place -- enhancing and empowering existing teachers, librarians, instructional coaches, paraeducators and administrators to provide school- or district-based support for instructional innovation. As an extension of existing roles, educators who complete the LIFT Framework can both model and serve as teacher leaders serving alongside their peers.

Plays well with others

The LIFT Framework brings together a diversity of educational ideas and practices into a unified learning path to help educators strengthen their practice and enable instructional partnership with their peers. But rather than imposing a standardized solution, it challenges educators to make personal choices and customize their learning to meet local needs. Shining a light on powerful research and strategies, the LIFT Framework allows educators voice and choice to explore and apply new learning to their own teaching and context. Educators are challenged to not only reflect on their own practice, but better understand their own school, systems, and community so that as instructional partners and leaders, they can design and implement unique solutions to meet local needs. In addition, educators can only complete the LIFT learning path with a peer who is a partner in learning, reflection, discussion, and collaboration.

Curated solutions

Leveraging existing research and development by leading educators and organizations, the LIFT Framework is designed to help educators put the pieces together by creating a focused playlist of key educational ideas and strategies for educators to explore and integrate into their practice. Examples include:

• professional learning networks and communities of practice,

• social and emotional learning,

• learner variability,

• universal design for learning, and

• digital learning integration.

Educators are challenged to collect and curate their own resources, links, and materials throughout the framework as a professional learning library.

Embedded professional learning

As instructional partners, the LIFT Framework challenges educators to work alongside other educators to conceive and design instruction collaboratively which incorporates innovative research, strategies, and digital tools, not as trainers, but as co-learners with other peers.

Authentically integrated technology

While recognizing the critical role of instructional technology, the LIFT Framework is primarily focused on effective adult learning, instructional partnership, and innovative learning design. The LIFT Framework challenges educators to see the connection between digital learning and educational priorities including learner variability, culturally responsive teaching, and social and emotional learning.