Collaborative For Teaching And Learning Inc

The Collaborative For Teaching And Learning was a wonderful asset to our Middle School Program through the Striving Reader's Grant. As a literacy coach at that time, my work with CTL was not only great for our students but a fantastic professional learning experience for me. Dr. O'Daniel and his staff are true professionals and work diligently to make the programs work through training and resources along with onsite visits. Working with CTL was some of the most beneficial learning and growth opportunities in my career. As a high school Assistant Principal at an A5 Alternative School for Credit Recovery, we still imbed the strategies from the trainings I received at CTL into our instruction.

The Collaborative for Teaching and Learning achieves its mission of ensuring excellence and equity in learning. The CTL staff know how children learn best and are able to bring much added value to the schools with which they work. CTL's work helps students be the best they can be.

The Center for Research in Educational Policy (CREP) has conducted educational evaluations and research throughout the country. In that capacity we have had the opportunity to work many times with the Collaborative for Teaching and Learning (CTL) from Louisville, Kentucky. They are consummate professionals and bring a great deal of knowledge and experience to their work. Additionally they are excellent collaborators. CREP’s experience with CTL has been rewarding and gratifying. We applaud their commitment to quality educational opportunities for students and teachers.

Through my time with Mission Data I have had many opportunities to meet with and talk to the staff at CTL. All have one common goal and that is to provide better education opportunities for our children. Each person on their staff is knowledgeable, professional and exactly who I, as a parent, would want to guide my child's school years. With a child in the public school system, I can see first hand the need to connect with Teachers and provide them with the support and tools they need to teach well. In addition, CTL's attention to literacy and the arts are qualities that make this organization the top notch entity that it is. I see no value in NOT having these things represented well in our schools.

The Collaborative for Teaching and Learning does top-notch work. In collaborating with staff of both CTL and partnering organizations on an expansive education project, I found myself in a room with people who are highly thoughtful, prepared, thorough and progressive in their idea-making. It has been stimulating and rewarding to work with an organization which deeply values arts in education, and seeks to nurture genuine growth for teachers and learners.

CTL is a non profit that understands the links between the needs of children for experience in the arts and the needs of teachers to have children in their classrooms learn the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. Their professional development programs that mix the arts with the basics are increasingly being modified for delivery through today's videoconferencing technologies. They are tops in all aspects.

CTL offers professional development that recognizes the growth and development of the whole child. CTL trainers understand that children live in an ever-changing and emerging world, and CTL instructors and trainers make connections to content that integrate multi-sensory learning and multi-faceted content that is challenging yet respectful of today's students.

I am proud to have CTL in our community. As an avid reader, I applaud CTL's literacy models, which promote the methods and strategies that create sustainable success for both students and teachers. CTL is a true asset to out commonwealth and the schools that serve it. Congratulations to CTL for its dedicated workers and outstanding programs!

CTL has helped our school reach out to our struggling readers. The ideas, methods, and strategies that CTL have shown teachers are outstanding and well received by the students. Students and teachers are writing and reading more through the use of technology. This is a major accomplishment for our area. Many students do not have computers in their homes. We are moving into the 21st century and CTL has played a major role in our school's accomplishments.

CTL has provided the next step in our quest to create a more literate environmnet in our school. They have been able to guide us to use the the cuurent tools that are in place in a cohjesive manner. We are currently using the plan they helped design.

The CTL was an intricate part of the National Middle Grades Project. Starting out as the Kentucky component of the project, CTL soon gained a leadership role within the project. As a professional educator, I have never worked with a team of educators that were more prepared or more driven to share their knowledge for excellence in teaching and learning. Even more amazing is their quest for continuing to learn through research and hands on involvement within classrooms across the state and the nation. Within my professional career I have never been more challenged to excel or felt more successful in my profession than in the three years spent as a part of the CTL team.

My job as a Literacy/Writing Specialist has been to provide instructional resources to teachers, administrators, and students. The Collabortaive For Teaching And Learning has always been a key source for information, lessons, and technology. In my experience, anything they produce has been great: thoroughly developed, currently valid, teacher-friendly, focused on classroom instruction and aligned with our standards.

CTL offered a program at the college where I teach c alled content literacy. The purpose of the program was to improve the teaching skills of the faculty that participated. The focus of the program was to teach students how to read to learn and write to learn so they could better teach themselves. The program focused on student centered learning. CTL practiced what they preached. Several techniques were explained and then we participated in the techniques. We used the techniques to learn the techniques. The experience overall was a good one. Although CTL states that the techniques are pertinent to all fields I did not find this to be the case in several instances. I think the experience would have been more effective if the participants were from similar diciplines so the techniques could be adjusted better to fit that dicipline. The faculty at the CTL were very helpful. Someone even came to your classroom to observe you implementing their techniques and give you feedback on what they saw.

CTL is one of the premier consulting organizations in the country. I was extremely impressed with the expertise of their consultants and coaches. They motivate teachers to look at teaching in new ways.

I first encountered the Collaborative when I was in search of expertise for reporting on local education issues. I soon learned that the staff there shared my belief that students are not the PRODUCTS of schools, but their customers. In the past several years, CTL has been our most helpful and complete resource on education matters. The staff fully understands the needs and reach of television news, particularly in the ability to speak through our telecasts to parents and students in a language they can understand.

In all the ways I have helped CTL, I have been blown away by the impact thier programs are having on teachers and children. I have witnessed example after example of students achieving great things from the poorest communities in Mississippi, to the wealthiest ares of Los Angeles and every where inbetween. They are making a real difference in so many ways. Fantastic people!

I was fortunate to participate in a CTL workshop on Content Literacy in 2008. Over the course of a semester, I met with CTL staff and colleagues from my college to learn techniques that would help us help our students learn more effectively. Since then, I've incorporated many things I learned in my teaching: anticipation guides, freyer models, socratic argument, paired verbal fluency. I was also introduced to graphic novels as a teaching tool at one session. Since then, I've built a small (aobut 300 volume) graphic novel collection at our college library, given a presentation on building lessons using graphic novels and will soon present at a state-wide library conference. Kudos to CTL for introducing so many faculty to new ideas -- that information has made so many of us better teachers....

In 2008 I participated in Content Literacy training through CTL. This was a wonderful experience for a college professor. As a professor, you focus so strongly on your discipline area that actually learning to teach is sometimes pushed aside. This training gave me the materials and skills to try out new active learning techniques in my classroom. The follow-up sessions and opportunities to work with other faculty across disciplines was particularly helpful in learning to apply the ideas to my classes. This training basically helped me learn some new techniques and ideas for reaching my students. Even though I may not use the exact techniques, the concept of active learning and the types of activities I learned helped me to become a stronger college teacher.