Our Commitment to Teacher Growth:
A Look Behind the Scenes

How do you measure confidence? Or track the moment a good teacher becomes a great mentor for their peers? At TeachUNITED, supporting teachers on their professional journey is the heart of what we do. To do it well, we need to understand their growth in a meaningful way. For years, like many organizations, we’ve used surveys to gather feedback. But what’s the difference? While valuable, we knew that to truly support our teachers, we needed to go deeper than satisfaction scores.

Assessments are designed to evaluate a learner’s mastery of specific skills, knowledge, and competencies. Surveys, while valuable for gathering feedback, often lack the depth and specificity to measure growth. Good assessments allow us to pinpoint areas of strength and weakness, identify knowledge gaps, and tailor interventions to address specific learning needs. Survey data, while helpful, often lacks the granularity to inform such targeted improvement strategies. And, in today’s data-driven world, demonstrating the ROI of a learning program is crucial. Assessments can provide the evidence needed to showcase the tangible impact of training initiatives on participants’ growth and development, which in turn allows us to make a stronger case to both internal and external stakeholders.

TeachUNITED is proud to launch a new approach: teacher self-assessments based on defined growth progressions — clear roadmaps for improvement — to track participant progress and understand the effectiveness of our learning initiatives.

These assessments are a collaborative tool, not a test, encouraging our teachers and participants to examine their knowledge, skills, and efficacy. When participants actively engage in a self-assessment that provides transparent results, they take ownership of their growth journey. They can see and chart progress along the key competencies of the defined growth progression, making their learning visible. They become invested in their development through insights into areas of strength and growth opportunities.

This new tool helps us answer a critical question for our partners and funders: How do we know our training is creating lasting change? Here’s a look at how we built it.

How We Built It – and How You Can Too

Step 1: Focusing on What Matters Most for Teachers

We started by asking: What are the skills that, when strengthened, make the biggest difference for ensuring school improvement? For us, two areas stood out: Instructional Leadership and Mentorship.

• Instructional Leadership is defined as the ability of educators to effectively adopt, adapt, and implement instructional strategies that drive student learning. This includes the ability to reflect on practice, use data to inform teaching, and foster continuous professional growth.
• For Mentorship (or Teacher-as-Coach), we are looking at the ability of educators to guide less experienced (or less trained) teachers to share effective teaching strategies with peers, foster a climate of continuous improvement in their school, and build professional learning communities. This focus ensures our work creates sustainable, school-wide improvement that lasts long after our direct involvement ends. 

Step 2: Create a Growth Progression Framework

Next, we mapped out what growth looks like in each of these skill areas. To create a clear and encouraging path for development, we opted for 5 levels.

For each skill, or competency domain, we briefly described what it looks like to be at each stage of the journey, defining the characteristics of a participant at each level.

• Level 1 reflects the characteristics of an educator as they first begin the program.
• Level 3 reflects the desired characteristics of educators who are proficient in core skills upon completion of the program, where we expect most participants to finish.
• Level 5 reflects the characteristics of educators who exceed expectations after the program, becoming true leaders and mentors in their schools.
• Levels 2 and 4 fill in the steps along the way.

From there, we identified specific and observable indicators for each level. Referencing our level descriptions, our goal was to create a list of concrete behaviors and observable indicators that could be directly measured, making the path to growth as clear as possible for participating educators.

We then analyzed the level descriptions and indicators for emerging themes. Three themes emerged for the Instructional Leadership domain (instructional strategies, professional development, and use of data) and two for the Mentorship domain (modeling/coaching and mentoring).

Step 3: Building the Assessment

With a clear roadmap in place, we designed the self-assessment. Our goal was to create something empowering, not intimidating. We chose to use a 1-5 rating scale ranging from “Not me at all” to “Totally me.” This format encourages honest self-reflection and helps teachers pinpoint exactly where they are on their growth journey.

Because we are using assessments across different geographical, cultural, and linguistic regions, we are careful to test how the questions and rating scales work with our participants. Agreement/disagreement terms are often highly localized, and we work closely with our local teams to get them right.

This assessment will be piloted in Africa, Latin America, and the United States within our data collection platform. Items are randomly presented to participants across all themes and levels and scored by theme and competency domain. To generate theme and domain scores by participant, item scores are weighted according to level, with the highest levels across the growth progression receiving the highest weighting. Theme and domain scores are also scaled to range from one to five for a more direct mapping to the level descriptors of the growth progressions within each key competency domain.

From Data to Deepened Impact

This tool does more than just provide data; it deepens our partnership with the educators we serve. With individual participant scores and group scores by theme and domain aligned with the defined competency levels, participants and TeachUNITED can easily garner insights into the competency gained between assessments. The results give both teachers and our coaches a shared understanding of strengths and opportunities for growth.

This allows TeachUNITED to see where participants are growing the most, where we may need to spend additional time, and highlights opportunities for deeper learning. It helps to make coaching as impactful as possible.

Our Commitment to Learning and Improvement

As we pilot this new tool, we’re committed to transparency and continuous improvement. We will be field-testing the growth progression framework itself and seeing how it is received by participants. We will regularly review and update the framework and the self-assessment to ensure they remain relevant, effective, and useful as we continue the work.

Six years ago, Christa McAuliffe was identified as a school in need of improvement due to low proficiency scores. Rather than accepting this designation, the school’s leadership and educators embarked on a transformational journey — one that would redefine their approach to instruction and student success.

“We have approximately 360 students from kindergarten through grade five, and we enjoy a culturally diverse population of students with varied socioeconomic backgrounds. In 2018, our school was identified as a school in need of improvement for its low scores in English Language Arts on our statewide assessment,” says Kris Gallo, Principal.

A factor in this success was the school’s collaboration with TeachUNITED, where administrators, teachers, and special educators engaged in targeted training focused on growth mindset, authentic engagement, personalized learning, and data-driven instruction. This initiative helped educators refine instructional methods and increase student confidence.

“The TeachUNITED professional development offered to our school was unique from the typical one-shot workshop, which provides great ideas but leaves you on your own. The TU trainers supported us through all our work over the last three years. We created and presented capstone projects showcasing the high-impact strategies that worked for our students. We planned and implemented trainings for our staff with the help of the TU team, utilizing the structures that made the most sense for us, our schedules, and our students.” – Principal Kris Gallo, Christa McAuliffe School

The Christa McAuliffe School wasn’t alone in achieving measurable impact. Check out this brief to learn more about TeachUNITED’s impact throughout the state.

FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, April 11, 2025 — TeachUNITED, a global nonprofit dedicated to improving educational outcomes in rural and underserved communities, is pleased to announce the recent appointment of three new board members. These distinguished leaders bring a wealth of expertise and a shared commitment to high-quality education.

“This is a pivotal moment for TeachUNITED as we scale our impact and reach more teachers than ever before. With the expertise and passion of our new board members, we are poised for transformative growth. Together, the TeachUNITED team, board, and partner school communities are driving measurable, lasting change for millions of learners,” said Heather Hiebsch, TeachUNITED Co-Founder and CEO.

The new board members include:

• Sally Bloomberg, Management Consultant & Certified Coach
• Leonora Dowley, Senior Lead, Philanthropic Coalitions, International Education Funders Group (IEFG)
• Tony Moten, Managing Consultant, Cospero Consulting

Each new board member brings unique skills and perspectives that will help guide TeachUNITED’s strategic vision and sustainable growth.

The expanded board will focus on strengthening partnerships, enhancing program impact and reach, and driving world-class implementations to equip more teachers with the tools needed to continuously improve student learning outcomes. Board Chair Terry Nealon adds, “As we prepare for the next chapter, we have expanded our board to bring in new perspectives and diverse experiences across education, philanthropy, and business so we can strengthen our ability to serve our global communities. TeachUNITED’s growth, particularly in the last three years, has been incredibly strong. This board will play an important role in helping us reach new heights in delivering meaningful change and impact.”

The three new members join existing board members:

• Diego Adame, Senior Director, Lego Foundation
• Chris Devling, VP of Global Sales & Strategic Development, Corwin Press (a SAGE Publishing Company)
• Scott Dooley, Software Director, University of Colorado Learning Engineering Virtual Institute
• Terry Nealon, Board Chair, TeachUNITED

TeachUNITED remains committed to its mission of transforming education through scalable, teacher-centered solutions in underserved communities in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States. With the addition of these new board members, the organization is poised to accelerate its efforts and drive lasting change for teachers and students.

For more information about TeachUNITED and its initiatives, explore our website or contact Joanna Watkins at joanna[at]teachunited.org.

If you’ve been along for the journey the last few years, you may remember our early conversations with Middle School Social Studies teacher, Andrew Bergang, from Strong Foundations Charter School. 

Andrew completed 1:1 coaching with TeachUNITED in the 2022-2023 school year. With new strategies and tools gained from the program, he and other participating teachers saw increased student engagement. 

“I think when things are not as traditional, or not what they expect, my students are more excited about it [learning].” – Andrew Bergang, Teacher, Strong Foundations Charter School

In the 2023-2024 school year, Andrew and fellow TU program graduates (other lead teachers) served as instructional coaches for peers within the rest of the school using all the materials gathered and strategies learned with TU Coaches. 

Successes from the Year

“Everyone was excited to sign up. Everyone wants to learn new strategies and improve their teaching ability. And these are great strategies to do so.” – Andrew Bergang

TU program teacher leaders focused on supporting peers by zeroing in on a single, targeted instructional unit, which kept the process manageable and allowed deeper exploration without overwhelming staff. Teachers appreciated having dedicated planning time and being able to select their focus areas, fostering genuine, open discussions about teaching practices. Teacher leaders led these conversations, which strengthened trust and created a safe space for collaboration. The process also led to increased camaraderie among staff, giving teachers a chance to connect across different departments. The value of the program was evidenced in the high levels of engagement seen by teacher leaders.

“I was surprised by the level of high engagement! Meetings at the end of a day after a full day of teaching can be hard… It was great to see how excited some teachers were by the content and the sessions.” – Lead Teacher

Opportunities for Improvement

While the school saw positive outcomes, they noted a few changes that could enhance their impact even further in subsequent years. For instance, starting earlier in the year and establishing a structured schedule upfront would help maintain a steady rhythm and avoid the feeling of rushing at the end. Quarterly check-ins and planning sessions, especially during teacher development days, could provide more continuity and support a smoother implementation.

Looking Ahead to Year 3

This school year, Strong Foundations incorporated learnings from year two and also has some new approaches to test. Teachers, including Andrew, are considering a mentorship approach where each Teacher Leader mentors a new staff member through the program. This “train-the-trainer” model would help foster new leaders in the school and offer new teachers tailored support and a sense of belonging. Other options include a rotating content model and a subject-specific focus, both of which would allow Teacher Leaders to offer focused guidance while managing classroom responsibilities.

With Year 3 underway, we’re excited to continue building on the past years’ achievements and strengthening all our school communities’ commitments to impactful, sustainable professional development.

All Points North Foundation and TeachUNITED Enter Year Three of Transformative Grant Partnership

Thank you to our funding partners, All Points North Foundation, who have been supporters of the program and our work with many schools, including Strong Foundations Charter School the last three years. Sustained, multi-year support from the foundation allows us to be steadfast in our support of each of the schools joining our program. 

ABOUT ALL POINTS NORTH FOUNDATION

All Points North Foundation was founded in 2011 by a private family foundation that believes passionately that everyone has a “true North” – a place of achievement – and that everyone should have equal opportunity and access to realize their goals. All Points North Foundation funds grantees in two areas – public middle school education (grades 6-8) and solar energy – that have the power to help communities nationwide navigate upward. For more information, visit allpointsnorthfoundation.org.

TeachUNITED to Facilitate Wyoming Department of Education Project-Based Learning Workshops and Microcredentialing Initiative

The Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) recently announced the launch of Powering Project Based Learning (PBL), an initiative of Wyoming’s Future of Learning Partnership to provide educators with resources designed to take PBL from theory to practice in Wyoming.

TeachUNITED is proud to have been selected to help facilitate this initiative. TeachUNITED will provide comprehensive professional development through interactive workshops and micro-credentialing opportunities, offering educators practical strategies and resources to integrate PBL into their teaching practices. Additionally, the micro-credentialing initiative will enable teachers to earn credentials that recognize their expertise and proficiency in PBL methodologies. TeachUNITED will also offer coaching sessions to assist educators in personalizing their classroom experiences.

“We are thrilled to work with the Wyoming Department of Education to bring Project-Based Learning to the forefront of educational innovation in the state. This initiative underscores our commitment to empowering teachers with the skills they need to foster engaging and impactful learning experiences for their students.”

– Heather Hiebsch, CEO, TeachUNITED

The first PBL workshop is scheduled to take place in Cody, Wyoming, on Wednesday, September 25, 2024. Wyoming educators interested in participating can register through the WDE website.

About Wyoming’s Future of Learning

Wyoming’s Future of Learning Partnership is a collaboration including the office of Governor Mark Gordon, the Wyoming Department of Education, the Wyoming State Board of Education, the University of Wyoming College of Education, the Wyoming Community College Commission, and the Wyoming Association of School Administrators, focused on piloting new instruction and assessment strategies for Wyoming students.