Highlander Institute partners with communities to imagine and create more equitable, relevant, and effective schools.
We support educators through
Engagements
We identify innovations and implement best practices in collaborative partnerships with classroom educators and system administrators.
Services
We activate educators as agents of change by providing learning opportunities that build skills, clarity, and common purpose.
Resources
We address gaps across all levels of the student and educator experience by creating resources and disseminating insights to the field at large.
Our approach leverages transformative frameworks to drive instructional equity
Our Pedagogical Framework
Implemented through an equity lens, our Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogy (CRSP) framework drives academic improvement. Persistent achievement gaps are the result of deficient systems, not deficient students. Our instructional approach begins with awareness, encouraging teachers and leaders to recognize how current systems undermine student confidence and under-develop cognitive processing skills. Our progression of high-value teacher moves is aligned with student data and paves the way for improving student engagement, elevating higher order thinking skills, and nurturing self-directed learners -- resulting in enhanced achievement and empowered students.
Our Change Management Model
Our Pathway to Personalization framework acts as a guide for scaling best practices across a school or district. In order to build momentum in any redesign effort, teachers, students, and other community stakeholders must unite as agents of change. Our framework serves as a roadmap for determining how to engage stakeholders, how to build momentum, how to align and communicate efforts, and how to measure progress along the way.
We aim to solve problems across the educational ecosystem
Organizational Transformation for Schools and Districts
Our year-long school and district engagements build momentum for whole school reform through a focus on local context, communication, continuous improvement, and stakeholder empowerment. Initiative alignment, parent engagement, and teacher empowerment feature prominently in the work.Partner organizations receive leadership and teacher coaching, ongoing access to a library of adaptable resources, and project management support.
Professional Learning for Teachers and Leaders
Our professional learning engagements build teacher and leader capacity through whole group professional development, small group professional learning communities, and 1-on-1 coaching. Professional development sessions provide an overview of the CRSP framework along with concrete, actionable strategies. Facilitated professional learning communities convene a group of committed teachers and leaders to discuss, reflect, and share content and resources. Individualized coaching centers on knowledge building, self-reflection, and the strategic implementation of CRSP practices aligned to teacher capacity and readiness.
Trainings & Events for Practitioners and Community Members
Each year, we convene hundreds of educators and leaders from across the country to showcase the best classroom, school, and district strategies for scaling personalized, culturally-responsive instructional practices. Through a variety of virtual and in-person workshops and events, we explore strategies and systems for transforming the student experience into one that is more empowering and equitable for all.
Resources & Publications for Educators and Decision-Makers
Pathways to Personalization draws on principles of improvement science and change management, as well as work in nearly five hundred classrooms, to help educators define their own rationales for personalized learning. Our Pathways to Personalization Framework outlined in the book guides teachers and leaders as they establish small pilot initiatives, determine criteria for success, evaluate their efforts, and create paths for replication and scale.
We are proudly supported by
With generous funding from our mission sponsors
Mission sponsors make it possible for the Highlander Institute to offer a number of special projects and events. Regardless of sponsorship, Highlander remains neutral with regard to educational technologies and applications.
Be Education Podcast
The Be Education Podcast is your one-stop-shop for all things related to K-12 classroom teaching. Listen in for practical tips to learn how to implement blended learning techniques, drive classroom culture, differentiate instruction, approach rigor and mastery, and much more. Whether you are a new teacher or a veteran educator, the Be Education Podcast will have actionable advice to help you drive student learning.