Project Summary

The Adolescent Literacy Collaboratory is a year-long, job-embedded professional learning experience for middle school and high school teachers of math, science, social studies, and English/language arts. The Collaboratory combines an initial face-to-face institute with year-long online learning activities.

The Collaboratory is not a traditional course. Instead, it is an opportunity for professional learning using a collaborative inquiry process that draws knowledge, experience, and insights from a literacy expert, online content-area coaches, and Collaboratory participants. It requires adopting what might be a new way of thinking about professional learning—an ongoing commitment among a cohort of colleagues to create knowledge together as they experiment with and reflect on new instructional strategies. The Knowledge Loom Adolescent Literacy spotlight content is incorporated as a resource.

The Collaboratory has supported teachers from urban, rural, and suburban schools throughout the U.S. and its territories in the use of research-based literacy instruction strategies. Participants have come from Rhode island, Massachusetts, Maine, Missouri, Arizona, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Web site: /Collaboratory

See also:

• The Knowledge Loom Spotlight: Adolescent Literacy in the Content Areas

Publications related to this project:

• Improving Online Collaborative Learning for Teachers: How Changes to Design Features of the Adolescent Literacy Collaboratory Influenced Participant Retention, Overall Satisfaction, and Engagement