Teaching Channel, a leading provider of online professional learning for educators, has launched the new Teaching Channel Platform, a single resource for the professional development needs of K-12 and higher education teachers. The new platform offers Teaching Channel’s renowned video library plus an array of tools to enable video-based self-reflection and peer feedback via professional learning communities (PLCs) and teacher cohorts. It provides informal and formal instructional and coaching support and workflows, offering access to professional development and 1,600+ exemplar videos filmed in classrooms across the country. “As lifelong learners, educators know that continued student growth depends upon supporting the professional growth of teachers,” said Don Rescigno, managing director of Teaching Channel. “We’re proud to offer a comprehensive platform dedicated to teachers’ growth—and the mentors, coaches, and leaders who support them—that is as robust as their commitment to student success.” The new platform’s Resource Center offers the Teaching Channel Library of more than 1,600 exemplar videos, along with supporting materials to help educators observe and learn teaching strategies, instructional coaching techniques, and leadership lessons. Educators can create playlists, identify favorite videos, or access playlists curated by the Teaching Channel team. An institution can also use its own Account Library to collect and upload exemplar videos, links, lesson plans, and other resources.  The Teaching Channel Platform’s Activity Center is one central location where educators: 

• Create and organize all their coaching activities; 
• Upload videos for reflection, peer feedback, use in PLCs, and coaching; and 
• Reflect on and share videos from the Teaching Channel or account libraries with peers, observers, and school leaders for rich discussion. 

“Educators are busy working to prepare students for an ever-changing future,” said Mike Smith, president of Teaching Channel. “Their time is too valuable to spend finding the right materials and tools to enable their own professional growth. That’s why we’ve created a platform to provide the resources they need to coordinate and pursue professional development throughout their school or district.” The platform’s extensive array of tools also empowers educators to:

• Create and meet with PLCs; 
• Conduct in-person observations; 
• Calibrate for observation through personalized video-based training and assessment experiences;
• Embed notes or questions for future reference or to provide context for observers; 
• Add documents for future reference; and 
• Identify areas of focus so they can take charge of their professional development.

The Resource and Activity Centers are designed to work together to support a wide range of stakeholders. Recording and sharing PLC meetings allows district-level personnel to improve district alignment to ensure efficacy and alignment with goals. The Teaching Channel Platform also helps coaches and administrators develop their own capacity and leadership skills, and supports administrators in performing formal or informal observations by reviewing videos teachers have created and uploaded to the platform. Lead teachers are able to create sample video lessons for distribution through the resource center to inform the lessons other teachers will share through platform workflows.  A dashboard allows all of these users to easily see recent statistics, access updates and to-dos, view updates to the Teaching Channel video library, and receive notifications. Reports for both administrators and individual educators provide rich data on general usage, videos watched, educator growth, and calibration and educator growth over time. “Our district has seen clear and measurable benefits from the use of video coaching and exemplar videos,” said Dr. Errick L. Green, the superintendent of Jackson (Mississippi) Public Schools, under whose leadership the district has improved two letter grades on the state’s accountability system. “It’s helping our teachers and instructional leaders to improve their practice, which is leading to improved student outcomes. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Teaching Channel.” Additional features will be released throughout the 2023–2024 school year. More information and the opportunity to demo the Teaching Channel Platform are available at TeachingChannel.com.