How Three Schools Are Transforming Professional Learning
Great schools recognize that teacher development is the foundation for educational innovation. But knowing this and acting on it are two different things. This work requires more than good intentions. It demands systematic support structures that align to school mission, balance internal and external expertise, provide clear, practical frameworks, and maximize time.
Three schools—The Potomac School, Gilman School, and Berkeley Carroll School—have each taken distinctive approaches to transforming professional learning through their partnership with GOA. Their stories reveal how strategic external partnership can support educator growth across the domains of teaching expertise.
The Potomac School: Strategic Alignment, Accessibility, and Application
- Challenge: Engaging faculty in practical professional learning is one thing. The key to meaningful, impactful professional learning, however, is aligning these experiences to school-wide strategic priorities and shared language.
- Approach: In an effort to support educators across divisions, leadership at The Potomac School brought in GOA to facilitate custom workshops like Educator Practice in the Era of AI and Building Feedback Ecosystems to enhance instructional practices while prioritizing coherence and alignment across their faculty.
- Why it Works: GOA workshops are grounded in a school’s mission and values, customized to a school's strategic goals, and designed to provide faculty with the opportunity to design, apply, and test tools that connect directly to their work and programmatic needs. Recognizing that these learning experiences are accessible, practical, and job-embedded is critical to empowering teachers.
"Partnering with GOA for the last two years in particular, has been really the cornerstone of our support for faculty at Potomac. It's been wonderful to have an outside partner that is willing to be so thoughtful about what your priorities are as a school.”
—Sarah Beck, Former Assistant Head of School for Academics [The Potomac School], Current Head of School at Windward School
Gilman School: Ongoing, Practical, and Flexible Learning
- Challenge: Time is limited and schools need to design beyond those isolated professional development days. Shifting teaching practice to create lasting change requires ongoing support, sustained engagement, and practical application.
- Approach: Through their partnership with GOA, Gilman designed their professional learning model to include access to learning experiences where teachers could experiment, reflect, and refine new approaches over time. This also made room for teachers to build on existing knowledge and expertise while reinforcing fundamental teaching skills as a way to improve learning outcomes.
- Why it Works: The school's faculty engaged in flexible learning that felt timely and practical and allowed teachers to exercise agency in exploring new ideas in greater depth. This also created opportunities for early adopters or teachers with greater expertise to support and encourage their colleagues to try new things and deepen their understanding.
"If there's one thing that comes to my mind when it comes to GOA's offerings, it's all about feedback. It's all about making sure that students understand where they are, where their strengths are, where their opportunities for growth are, and enabling teachers to be better communicators of that is a key strength for us."
—Tye Campbell, Director of Strategic Information and Innovation
Berkeley Carroll School: Internal Expertise Meets External Perspectives
- Challenge: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quickly transitioned from emerging technology to a profound aspect of education today, and teachers and school leaders have been tasked with building AI-ready schools that still prioritize the core values and principles that are essential to great teaching and learning.
- Approach: Berkeley Carroll brought in GOA to support and enhance their work in developing important AI initiatives. Leveraging this partnership and the expertise of their own task force of on-campus instructional leaders, the school was able to focus on developing school-wide AI literacy and a shared understanding of both the challenges and opportunities AI presents in schools.
- Why it Works: Combining internal expertise with external perspectives allowed Berkeley Carroll to stay true to their mission and core values, broaden and strengthen AI literacy faculty-wide, and develop initiatives and concrete next steps. Their investment in school-wide professional development through GOA, creating a dedicated committee to lead ongoing work, and their commitment to developing communities of practice and collaboration positioned them well to lead and shape the future of learning at their school.
The Partnership Advantage
Each of these schools recognized that transformation doesn't happen in isolation, and they leveraged GOA's expertise and global perspective while maintaining their unique institutional culture and priorities. When schools commit to systematic, sustained professional learning, and they are supported by strategic partnerships, they create conditions for educators to strengthen expertise and thrive across all dimensions of their practice. The result isn't just better professional development; it's schools that can adapt, innovate, and prepare students for the future.
GOA is a nonprofit learning organization that reimagines learning to empower students and educators worldwide. In partnership with our global network of 150 schools, we provide interactive, relationship-driven courses, expert resources, and innovative thinking that help to expand and elevate academic programs. Together, we help students and educators become open to the extraordinary.
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