Problem Solvers & Makers of Meaning

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Teacher Preparation

The PEBC Teacher Residency program prepares college graduates to embark on exceptional teaching careers through an experiential licensure program.

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Professional Learning

PEBC supports teachers in all content areas and at all levels to become the educators they aspire to be. PEBC staff offer customized, contextualized professional learning targeting teaching for understanding.

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Policy

Local, state, and national leaders trust PEBC to inform the development of sound education policy that profoundly impacts success for students and teachers alike.
 

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Who We Are

Each and every child deserves a great teacher. As a nonprofit, we collaborate with schools, districts, legislators, and communities nationwide to recruit, train, develop and support educators who, in turn, support learners at all levels.

What We Do

We prepare outstanding new teachers, help good teachers and leaders become exceptional, and shape systems and policies that foster vibrant growth and lasting success for all students and teachers.

How We Do It

The experts at PEBC are lifelong learners who celebrate independent thinking and work to foster agency for both teachers and students, culminating in deep understanding. Our Teaching Framework is based on 30 years’ learning alongside teachers – the approaches are not new, and yet they are not outdated. Educators at all levels can adapt this Framework to their own context and effectively strengthen students’ confidence and competence as problem solvers and makers of meaning.

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To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.

- bell hooks

UPCOMING COURSES AND EVENTS

Copy of EEE

Nov. 4, 2021

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Evening to Elevate Educators

 Nov. 2, Nov. 9, Nov. 16, 2021

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Investigating Thinking Strategies PLUS!

Teachers learning

Sept. 15, 2021 to May 12, 2022

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Cognitive Coaching

Student Solving a Math Problem

December 8 & 9, 2021

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Minds on Math Institute

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New and Notable

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Virtual Coaching

PEBC's expert facilitators are skilled at individual coaching as well as facilitating whole-staff, all-district sessions for teachers and leaders around a wide range of topics.

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Online Courses

Registration is now open for many of our fall events. We are also pleased to offer many online courses.

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Phenomenal Teaching

Wendy Ward Hoffer’s fifth book, Phenomenal Teaching, provides a wide range of examples and ideas to foster phenomenal thinking and learning in classrooms at all levels.

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LATEST PODCAST

Permission to Pump the Brakes

October 5, 2021

Brooke O’Drobinak and Beth Kelley join PEBC’s Phenomenal Teaching Podcast with Michelle Morris Jones to share perspectives and practices to help educators ‘make it to Monday” during this incredibly challenging time. First and foremost, it is important to recognize that we are in the midst of a “mental health tsunami” and all of our feelings, …

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This Is What Comes With It… Stepping Into Real Classroom & School Leadership

September 23, 2021

School leadership takes on many forms from those who serve in formal leadership roles to those who stand before students each and every day. In order to step boldly into true service and leadership we must first know ourselves, our values, our why, and the habits and ways of thinking that hold us back. Maggie …

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Compelling Conversations

September 13, 2021

Jailyn Jenkins joins Michelle Morris Jones to unpack the PEBC Teaching Framework and specific ways in which teachers can promote student discourse that is meaningful; culturally responsive and sustaining; and inclusive of all voices. First and foremost, we must invest in building relationships with students and establishing rituals and routines that promote talk in our …

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Humanizing Schools

September 1, 2021

As we strive to create schools that are more phenomenal than ever before, Michelle Morris Jones sits down with Sam Bennett to discuss Humanizing Leadership. Sam clearly spells out some of the ways in which schools systematically dehumanize teachers and students, and she suggests actions leaders can take to create schools that support the humanity …

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What Do You Hope the Teachers Remember? Student Perspectives on Virtually Connected Learning

May 26, 2021

In this episode of the PEBC Phenomenal Teaching Podcast, students Estella and Killian and their Virtual Advisor Karen Goodman share their experiences as learners in their virtually connected classroom. It is informative and joyful to listen in on all the successes, challenges, and favorite memories as Estella and Killian share how they grew as a …

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Planning for Culturally Nourishing Learning

May 18, 2021

By centering humanity we can plan for cultural sustainability and implement equitable practices that are not Band-Aid solutions or simply performative activities. Nawal Q. Casiano of NQC Literacy joins Michelle Morris Jones on the Phenomenal Teaching Podcast and shares her beliefs and practical ideas for teaching literacy for agency, equity, and understanding. Nawal and Michelle …

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Getting Unstuck: One teacher’s story

May 7, 2021

Teaching first grade for the first time is tricky! And teaching first grade virtually for the first time is even trickier! Listen in as PEBC Lab Host Kirsten Myers Blake shares how she got “unstuck” when times got tough by leaning into her beliefs, determining importance, and loving hard. As a fierce believer in the …

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Finding the Brilliance in Every Student… Asset Based Assessment

April 28, 2021

In this episode, Katherine Bomer and Michelle Morris Jones discuss the importance of asset based assessment practices and the ways in which adopting an appreciative mindset leads to student growth, efficacy, and joy.  Katherine shares how her thinking about asset based assessment has evolved from the publication of Hidden Gems to include the development of …

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Planning Lifeworthy Writer’s Workshops

April 14, 2021

In this episode, Kelly Boswell joins Michelle Morris Jones on the Phenomenal Teaching Podcast to discuss how to plan and implement lifeworthy writer’s workshops. In the PEBC Teaching Framework, “lifeworthy learning” means engaging with classroom content in a way that has meaning beyond the classroom. Lifeworthy learning sees and supports students as scholars, citizens, and …

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Finding Humanity in Hybrid Learning

April 7, 2021

In this episode, PEBC Lab Hosts Jenn Brauner and Jennifer Engbretsen join Michelle Morris Jones on the Phenomenal Teaching Podcast to discuss the ways that hybrid learning is playing out for them and their students. Jenn shares the ways in which she plans mini units that are life-worthy and engaging for students, how she confers …

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LATEST POSTS

Coaching Launch

By Michelle Morris Jones | September 1, 2021

As the school year begins, Instructional Coaches everywhere are serving teachers in a variety of ways. I was curious as to the coaching moves that my coaching colleagues lean into as the school year begins so I surveyed a handful of coaches from across the country and dug into some of my favorite resources.  Here …

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Becoming a Coach: Kirsten’s Story

By Kirsten Myers-Blake | July 29, 2021

Like many before me, I was a lead teacher who said goodbye to the classroom and hello to the front of a staff room. We traded our well-oiled systems for scaffolding student growth and were asked to differentiate learning for a community of adults. Any given year, this group could include 30-year veterans, bright-eyed 22-year-olds, …

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Creating a Predictable Structure for Professional Learning

By Michelle Morris Jones | June 22, 2021

Fueled with coffee and the remaining adrenaline from wrapping up the school year, the Bill Roberts Instructional Leadership Team gathered for our annual June reflecting and planning retreat.  Val started things off by asking, “So what went well this year, and where are we headed?”  After reviewing teacher surveys, exit slips from various professional learning …

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Rock Star Alumna Instills a Sense of Curiosity in Students

By PEBC | May 12, 2021

Wrangling rock stars in the music industry requires the same skill set as teaching a roomful of third graders.  Maybe that’s why the transition was an easy one for me. When I attended college, I did so with an intense love of learning.  I was the first in my family to get a degree.  Not …

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Legislation to Support the Educator Workforce in Colorado

By Evan Kennedy | March 26, 2021

We’ve previously written about our efforts to create a more resilient education system in Colorado, including our work with Keystone Policy Center on the Education System Resiliency and Innovation Initiative (ESRII), which resulted in the Rebuilding Stronger report distilling the specific recommendations for state and local action developed by 80+ stakeholders from across the state.  …

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Keystone Policy Center, PEBC Publish Recommendations to Improve Teacher Support, Usher Education System Change Following COVID-19 Disruption

By Evan Kennedy | February 9, 2021

Keystone Policy Center (KPC) and the Public Education & Business Coalition (PEBC) published a comprehensive report Feb. 9 detailing a set of 16 recommendations aimed at strengthening teacher support and initiating system-level change. The report is the result of the work of a broad coalition called the Education System Resiliency and Innovation Initiative (ESRII) and …

Keystone Policy Center, PEBC Publish Recommendations to Improve Teacher Support, Usher Education System Change Following COVID-19 Disruption Read More »

Three Ways to Boost Language Use and Development in the Virtual World

By Moker Klaus-Quinlan | February 1, 2021

Do you remember watching a small child acquire language skills? First, they listen; then, they speak; soon, they write, and next they read, spiraling their growth in these language skills over time, ongoinging. Learners at all levels need a balance between experiences with receptive language (listening and reading) and expressive language (writing and speaking). One …

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Supporting Ourselves and Others: Self-Care and SEL in the Age of Covid

By Andra Brill | January 14, 2021

Confession: I’ve never been much of a fan of the term self-care. It’s always felt a bit self-indulgent and brings up visions of the old Calgon bubble bath commercials. However, over the past few years, and particularly during the past several months of social distancing, I’ve started to see that self-care isn’t selfish at all. …

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Learning to Teach in the Age of COVID

By Kim McGrigg | January 11, 2021

­­­­Teaching is not only a career for Alex Buck; it’s his destiny. One of Alex’s earliest memories is from second grade when he drew pictures of himself as a teacher – complete with a classroom full of students.   Fast forward to college: Alex studied History and French at the University of Colorado-Boulder. After earning his …

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Four Critical Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Practices: Supporting Ourselves and Others in Unusual Times

By Andra Brill | January 8, 2021

We are living in remarkable times. In July of 2020, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, CASEL released what they called an SEL (Social Emotional Learning) roadmap for reopening schools. In collaboration with forty other organizations, CASEL addressed the challenges that schools were facing as they looked to reopen this past fall. Among these …

Four Critical Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Practices: Supporting Ourselves and Others in Unusual Times Read More »

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