Introducing The Learner First’s Professional Learning program. We specialize in Authentic System Change so we understand the component skills, knowledge and competencies schools, leaders, teachers and their systems require to produce successful learners.
We offer a discount when you bring 6 or more teachers/leaders for the available Professional Learning Experiences. Alternatively book one in your school or district for further discounts.
At The Learner First, we believe that every child deserves Hope, the Capacity to succeed, an energizing Purpose and a sense of Place in our world. We transform schools and systems from standardized to personalized to deep by putting The Learner First.
Teacher Track:
Diving into Deep Learning
Authentic Conversations for Teaching and Learning
AMMA (Authentic Mixed Method Assessment)
Leadership Track:
Authentic conversations for Leadership, Teaching and Learning
Leading for Accelerated Change
Leading a Digital School
Please note: Dates listed in this brochure are for open intake programs. TLF can customize and deliver listed programs, as well as tailor professional learning solutions to your needs.
Deep Learning results from the delivery of rich core content to students in innovative ways that allow them to learn and then apply what they have learned in new or different contexts. Deep learning design focuses on building the capabilities of Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Citizenship and Character in learners, so that they are able to flourish in our increasingly complex global society.
Deeper learning prepares students to: • know and understand core academic content • think critically and solve complex problems • work collaboratively • communicate effectively • become more self-directed • actively contribute to local and global communities
Come and experience deep learning in action. Learn how to design new and redesign existing lessons, making them deeper learning experiences for your students. Take away tools and processes that will help you design deeper learning.
Imagine navigating an unknown city, state or ocean without a map. Not knowing where you are, where you are going, or how to get there… Disaster looms large.
Without our help, students can share that feeling of doom; lost in an unknown learning landscape.
This workshop will equip teachers with an understanding of the importance of nurturing self-directed learners. It will provide practical tools and processes designed to support all students understanding what they are learning, why they are learning and what successful learning looks like. We will explore personalized, explicit and constructive feedback models and develop strategies for using feedback more effectively in class.
This workshop is built around the research of John Hattie as published in his Visible Learning publications (print and online). It draws on the direct teaching, learning and leadership experience of the facilitators, as well as the work of Wiggins and McTighe (effective feedback), Shirley Clarke (success criteria and learning intentions) Dylan Wiliam (feedback for learning) and John Seeley Brown (the nature of learning).
Participants will: 1. Build a shared understanding of the power of self-regulated learning 2. Understand the importance of learning intentions and success criteria, and be able to generate
context-appropriate intentions and criteria as part of a backward design model 3. Understand the difference between Feedback and Advice 4. Understand the need for, and generate strategies to provide, differentiated and personalized
feedback to learners 5. Apply the concepts of Feed Up, Feed Back and Feed Forward to their practice (3 step approach)
You know it’s time to stop teaching to the test, but you aren’t sure how else to get trackable, evidence-based assessments. Authentic Mixed Method Assessment shows you, in real time, which learners need help the most and why. And it doesn’t take time away from high quality teaching – it enhances it.
All learners are different. They learn differently, think differently, and they come from different cultures and backgrounds. To get a real sense of who they are and how they are learning, AMMA gathers a wide range of evidence and synthesizes it into a rating that tells us whether a student is on track to be successful or not.
Those evidence sources can include things like: • grades • tests • attendance and performance data • parent and student interviews • performance tasks • surveys • and any other piece of evidence that is important to learners in your district.
This workshop will dive deep into AMMA, and provide clear and effective strategies for enhancing learning for all learners.
Authentic Conversations for Leadership, Teaching and Learning
Facilitators: Joanne McEachen and Max Drummy
Target audience: School Leaders
As a leader, every conversation matters. How can you ensure that all your interactions with your staff are effective, focused, and produce the results you intend?
This program will raise your self-awareness about the language you use, the manner in which you communicate and your capacity to LEAD effectively.
This program draws on the facilitator’s broadly credentialed coaching experience, including the principles of Cognitive and Growth Coaching, and will allow participants to develop effective processes and strategies for building the capacity of their staff through powerful coaching conversations.
Participants will: 1. Examine and develop an understanding of the need to minimize bias 2. Understand and develop the capacity to establish and maintain Trust and Rapport in
conversation with others 3. Focus on understanding, and then building the capacity to Coach with Compassion– based on
Cognitive Coaching, Growth Coaching and fierce conversations models 4. Understand the differences between Planning, Reflective and Feedback conversations, and be
able to move between these modalities as needed 5. Develop Questioning, Pausing and paraphrasing techniques.
Ongoing Application: Participants will engage in a leadership inquiry based in their school context
This program makes explicit connections to several of the PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR EDUCATIONAL LEADERS (2015) (Previously the ISLLC Standards) Professional Standards for Educational Leaders
STANDARD 6. Professional Capacity of School Personnel STANDARD 7. Professional Community for Teachers and Staff STANDARD 10. School Improvement
What makes you a leader? What makes an effective leader?
This program will help you answer those questions, as well as build your confidence to lead others. Together we will examine focus areas such as:
• Leading for Accelerated Change- The Learner First • Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence • Leadership and management • Having fierce (hard) conversations • Building great change teams • Creating Vision, mission and engagement • Stages of concern (CBAM) • Ethical leadership
You will apply your learning in an inquiry based in your school context, and be supported throughout the program by 1:1 coaching conversations.
This program makes explicit connections to several of the PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR EDUCATIONAL LEADERS (2015) (Previously the ISLLC Standards) Professional Standards for Educational Leaders
STANDARD 1. Mission, Vision, and Core Values STANDARD 2. Ethics and Professional Norms STANDARD 3. Equity and Cultural Responsiveness STANDARD 6. Professional Capacity of School Personnel STANDARD 7. Professional Community for Teachers and Staff STANDARD 10. School Improvement
The Leading a Digital School Program will enable educators and leaders to harness the power of technology to change personal and professional practice and initiate sustainable change in schools – change that improves learning outcomes for students. It will build participants personal capacities in the high leverage use of technology. The program will support them in applying these newly developed skills and understandings to the leadership of innovative, contemporary schools.
They will do this through: • exploring how to collaborate and communicate as contemporary educational leaders within their
school context and beyond • examining the conditions in which innovation can flourish • building understandings of digital pedagogy • developing the capacity to lead conversations that support effective use of technologies
Research underpinning this program includes: • Michael Fullan – Stratosphere • Joanne McEachen- The Learner First • ISTE NETS for Administrators • Viviane Robinson- School Leadership and Student Outcomes: Identifying what works and why • 10 strong claims about successful school leadership – Leithwood et. al. • Mal Lee & Roger Brodie -The taxonomy of school evolutionary stages.
This program makes explicit connections to several of the PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR EDUCATIONAL LEADERS (2015) (Previously the ISLLC Standards) Professional Standards for Educational Leaders
STANDARD 4. Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment STANDARD 9. Operations and Management STANDARD 10. School Improvement
Joanne McEachen is an internationally recognized education leader in Authentic Systemic Change. She is the CEO/Founder of The Learner First and also serves as Global New Measures Director for New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL), a multi country initiative focused on transforming systems.
Drawing on her deep expertise in creating and sustaining change at every level of the K-12 system, Joanne has led the design and implementation of major transformation/s in education systems, globally. Her multi-pronged approach
includes targeted change management assistance for schools, a redesign of the system for funding and allocating Professional Learning and Development, and the
redesign of Professional Learning Communities to Learning and Learning and Change Networks, Designing of Authentic Mixed Method Assessment. Joanne is sought after for her work, both locally and internationally in the design of assessment and measuring learning. Her experience includes leading the global New Measures Team, designing and co-authoring The Suite of Tools for NPDL.
Joanne has personal experience at all levels of the education system: as a teacher, principal, superintendent, and led many change programs at the Ministry of Education in New Zealand. She understands the issues that many systems face and can provide crystal clarity and options for finding the right solutions. Joanne believes that our work in education is powerful, and to be sustainable, change must be done by the people, for the people and with the people. By understanding each other, we can build cohesive school and system change processes, creating a safe space to dig deeply into underlying beliefs so we can affect genuine change for the learners who need it the most.
Joanne is the author of multiple books, white and working papers, and is a renowned speaker across the globe. She is known for the ability to connect, at an authentic level and work alongside systems—all the way through to outcomes for every learner.
Max Drummy is a School and System leader from Australia, Max is highly committed to exploring how effective education systems lead, educate and learn with, from and for
future generations, using technology as an amplifier and connector of leaders, learners and learning.
Max spent the last 12 years working for the Department of Education, Tasmania, Australia. He headed up K-12 technology-based educational reform initiatives, school and district resourcing, and worked with teachers and school leaders to build their proficiency in leading, teaching and learning. Max also lectured into and co-
designed pre-service teacher education modules at the University of Tasmania (UTAS). Prior to working in Tasmania, Max held varied teaching, advisory and leadership
roles at an international school in Southern China, and in Geelong, Australia.
As a Leader of Professional Learning for the Professional Learning Institute, DoE Tasmania, Max designed, facilitated and evaluated a range of highly acclaimed flagship programs including 21st Century Learning Design and Leading a Digital School. Focusing strategically on school improvement, Max worked with schools, individuals and networks to build the collective capacity of teachers, leaders and learners. Max co-led the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning Australian Cluster from 2013 until his relocation to Seattle in mid-2016.
Max has a number of post graduate certifications including a Master of Educational Leadership, several accreditations in coaching and brokering approaches, and a broad and varied skillset built on experience both within and from outside the education sector.
