Joellen Killion champions educator learning as the primary pathway to student success. She serves school systems, schools, regional, state, and national agencies within the U.S. and abroad as a consultant and learning facilitator. She is senior advisor to Learning Forward and formerly was its deputy executive director. Joellen leads, facilitates, and contributes to a number of initiatives related to examining the link between professional development and student learning. She has over 30 years of experience in planning, design, implementation, and evaluation of professional learning at the school, system, state, and international level.
Joellen is a frequent contributor to education publications and the author of multiple books, numerous chapters, and papers on the design, implementation, and evaluation of professional learning, coaching, and teacher leadership. Her particular interests are collaborative learning teams, coaching educator success, evaluation and program audits, standards for professional learning, policy to support professional learning, and comprehensive planning and implementation of high-quality, standards-based, results-focused professional learning. Joellen works with teachers, coaches, teacher leaders, principals, district leaders, education consultants, and education agency staff to support the practices of continuous learning and development for all educators.
Joellen led a number of national initiatives on professional learning, including the third edition of Learning Forwardâs Standards for Professional Learning and the accompanying Innovation Configuration maps. She has conducted evaluations of projects funded by federal and private foundation grants including U.S. Department of Education Technology Challenge Grants. She has also led projects funded by the Washington Mutual Foundation, Dodge Foundation, GE Foundation, Wachovia Foundationâs Teachers and Teaching Initiative, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MetLife Foundation, Sandler Foundation, and Wallace Foundation. Most recently she directed Transforming Professional Learning for College- and Career-Ready Students, a national study with Kentucky as the demonstration state and including six other states as critical friends examined and revised policy and practices for establishing comprehensive professional learning systems to support national and state initiatives and resulted in 13 publications to support other state and district efforts.
Her books, What Works in the Middle: Results-Based Staff Development, What Works in the Elementary Grades: Results-Based Staff Development, and What Works in the High School: Results-Based Staff Development, summarize studies of content-specific (social studies, science, mathematics, and language arts) professional development.
Her study of schools that have received the U.S. Department of Educationâs Model Professional Development Awards sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and WestEd resulted in Teachers Who Learn Kids Who Achieve: A Look at Model Professional Development. She has studied online learning and its role in professional development. This study resulted in E-Learning for Educators: Implementing the Standards.
Other books resulting from studies and initiatives include Collaborative Professional Learning Teams in School and Beyond: A Tool Kit for New Jersey Educators; The Learning Educator: A New Era in Professional Learning (co-authored with Stephanie Hirsh); Becoming a Learning School (co-authored with Patricia Roy); The Feedback Process: Transforming Feedback for Professional Learning, 2nd edition; Taking the Lead: New Roles for Teachers and School-based Coaches, 2nd edition (co-authored with Cindy Harrison), Assessing Impact: Evaluating Professional Learning, 3rd edition, and Coaching Matters, 2nd edition (co-authored with Chris Bryan and Heather Clifton). She has authored a number of monographs and papers, contributed to the International Handbook on Mentoring and Coaching in Education, and contributes blogs on topics in professional learning.
The creed Joellen lives by is:
Excellence can be achieved if you . . .
Care more than others think is wise . . .
Risk more than others think is safe . . .
Dream more than others think is practical . . .
Expect more than others think is possible . . .
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Joellen Killion was recently a guest on Episode #55 of the Coaching Conversations podcast with Jim Knight. Listen to her episode on your favorite podcast platform.