1. Nobody Knows Teaching Like Teachers
July 13, 2016
Wendy Sauer
Senior Program Officer
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

2. Your personal learning network

3. The connected educator

4. Teacher2Teacher is a community grounded in teacher needs

6. Nobody knows teaching like teachers

7. Listening 30,000 teachers in 10 discrete quantitative studies
Over 10 focus groups and qualitative research including 1:1 interviews
Three deep studies focused on content, PD and data tools/supports about what is working, what’s not and what teachers need
Study over 3 months to capture the “online” conversation among teachers that looked at over 24K tweets, 12K blogs and 16K Edchats

8. Teachers articulate what they need1
Reduce isolation
Teachers have a deep desire to collaborate with peers.
Reduce the hunt
Overwhelming landscape makes it hard to find the right materials. Lack of time for teachers amplifies this issue. 2 3
Elevate and celebrate the profession
Teachers want and deserve professional respect. 4
Recognize teachers as leaders
Teachers want new roles that allow them to grow professionally while staying in the classroom.
Trust the teachers When it comes to practice, teachers trust each other more than anyone else, but they feel disempowered. 5

9. There is a silver bullet in education. It’s the teachers.
Molly Robbins, High School English Teacher, Colorado
The sustainability of my career is dependent on the community of educators and networks
that I am a part of.
Crystal Morey, Teaching Channel Laureate

11. Our hypothesis

12. Teacher leader and network initiatives
Build and Strengthen Educator Networks
Engage Audience Via Multiple Channels
Support Authentic Face-to-Face Opportunities
Provide and Support Leadership Opportunities

13. Working with national partners: learn, connect, lead

14. Working in states with local partners

15. What we’re learning from partnerships
Teachers connected to practice networks are engaged in the complex process of interpreting new state standards into practices. Networks are helping them adapt their lessons, collaborate with their peers, and find useful resources.
Networks that develop teacher leaders and create authentic opportunities for these leaders to support their peers are seeing practice improvements and student outcome growth.
Teachers resonate with network experiences that allow them to learn from and with their peers.
Transformative teacher engagement with practice networks requires a growth mindset – a desire to continuously refine one’s teaching.

16. Teacher2Teacher: a network that flips the model > community first
Our Theory of Change to Ultimately Drive Student Outcomes
Strong, Dynamic Connections
digital and face-face
Teachers
Harmonized
Critical Mass
Strong curation
Teacher first mindset
Empirical proof
Supply
Builds foundation of trust
Reinforces intrinsic motivations
Models innovation + risk taking
Provides curated, relevant resources
informed, motivated,
engaged, networked
Demand
Existing Scale Platforms

17. Content focused on trust building, motivation, modeling, and practice

18. What we’re from learning from Teacher2Teacher
Vibrant online communities can elevate a single teacher leader.
Twitter can allow teachers to problem solve collaboratively in real time.
3. Face-to-face experiences (like this one) have the power to equip teachers to make real change in their classrooms and schools.
4. Thoughtful digital engagement opportunities can create a common bond.
2015
2016
# of tweets using #whyiteach hashtag during Teacher Appreciation Week
1,415
26,500

19. Your turn …
Ask five teachers at this conference what practice networks have made the biggest impact on their instruction. Join the online conversations that teachers in these networks are having.
Think about National Board certification – or recertification.
Attend an Edcamp (events in 21 states between now and end of August), the California Better Together Summit (June 29), or a regional ECET2 conference.
Join conversations on Twitter. Start by sharing a lightbulb moment from this conference at #LightbulbMoment (and visit the T2T booth to share with others here).
Join the Teacher2Teacher Facebook community. Learn from others and share what’s made you the teacher you are.
Bring #whyiteach to your school.
Embrace opportunities to be an instructional leader beyond your classroom and school. You’ve got a lot to share. Get to it!

20. Cheering you on wendy.sauer@gatesfoundation.org @WendyHSauer
High school social studies teacher
Library of Congress fellow
Social studies department chair
James Madison Memorial Foundation fellow
New teacher mentor
District social studies lead
@WendyHSauer