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Who is All Learners Network?

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All Learners Network (ALN) is a community of educators who are committed to improving math instruction for all students.  We provide professional development that will improve pedagogy, which in turn affects learning outcomes for students. ALN seeks to provide equitable access to quality math instruction by supporting and improving teachers’ pedagogical skill.

Most schools in the U.S. only support math achievement for a minority of their students. Nationally, less than half of fourth graders and 25% of 11th graders are math proficient. The demographic composition of students who are successful overwhelmingly represents the race and socioeconomic status of the teachers who serve them. Our work is to address this disparity by improving teacher pedagogy to serve all students regardless of ability or circumstance.

ALN is fueled by a deep desire to provide math equity to all students so that all students can be successful with learning mathematics. We work to achieve this equity by improving the pedagogical skill of all teachers of mathematics,  particularly around accessibility of Tier 1 instruction to all students, appropriate and effective intervention, and acceleration of learning to close achievement gaps. Although our greatest impact happens with systemic work within a school/district, we also provide in-person and virtual workshops supporting educators in developing pedagogical skills that promote learning success for all students.  ALN also has an online, self-paced professional learning and resource platform, All Learners Online (ALO). ALO resources assist teachers in making mathematics accessible and differentiated for all students within the ALN Lesson Structure. In addition to immediately applicable, downloadable resources, ALO also has self-paced coursework to guide and inform instruction. 

Our Five Key Components serve as our North Star in all of our work and they are:

The High Leverage Concepts help focus instruction by identifying the most essential mathematical concepts at each grade level that will allow students to confidently and successfully progress to the next grade level. These concepts are embedded throughout our professional learning experiences and instructional resources to support teachers in prioritizing what matters most.

All Learners Network (ALN)  uses a workshop-style approach within a balanced math block in order to leverage both inclusion and differentiation for optimal student learning. Every classroom can support a range of learning and understanding of grade-level content. The ALN lesson structure provides guidance on how to support effective learning that all students can access.

Our experience and implementation science tells us that change is most effective when it moves beyond individual teachers and is spread throughout schools and districts. ALN is dedicated to helping develop and sustain systems of leaders, coaches, and specialists to create a long-term improvement for all students.

ALN assessment tools help surface students' math understanding. Our resources empower educators to be responsive to data signals that show where students might benefit from additional practice or instruction. We guide teachers in using ongoing formative assessment to create strength-based goals for students and design responsive first instruction.

The techniques and resources at ALN come from both existing research and our own research process, which is grounded in design research. ALN champions a rapid cycle of inquiry approach that allows for gathering of data and testing of strategies. You can read more about it here!

 

At ALN, we know that through a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), all students feel a sense of belonging and are actively included in rigorous and engaging learning opportunities related to grade level content. Our ALN Lesson Structure serves as a guide on how to provide MTSS within a math block. The structure starts with a Launch for purposeful discussion-rich number sense routines, moves to an inclusive Main Lesson, brings in differentiation with Math Menu, and ends with Closure - an opportunity for student discourse and formative assessment. Students’ social-emotional needs as well as their executive functioning skills are considered and impact the planning of the first layer of instruction. Some students receive additional support in a second-layer of instruction to build on that first layer through a Math Menu structure and quality small group intervention focused on moving students along the learning progression of grade level content. Finally, a few students receive an additional third layer of instruction that we consider specialized instruction that is supported by quality, engaging, rich thinking tasks that build student understanding. 

ALN’s mission, which guides all professional development we facilitate, is to change math instruction so all students have opportunities to learn rich mathematics. This is at our core. This is what drives us in our embedded professional development, our workshops, and our online platform. 

Click here for the printable version.

 

What Now?

  1. Check out our High Leverage Concepts (HLCs) and watch our HLC Explainer Videos.
  2. Review the ALN Lesson Structure and read more about its application.
  3. Register for one of our upcoming events (many of them are free!).
  4. Bring All Learners Network (ALN) into your school or district for embedded professional development.



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All Learners Network is committed to a new type of math instruction. We focus on supporting pedagogy so that all students can access quality math instruction. We do this through our online platform, free resources, events, and embedded professional development. Learn more about how we work with schools and districts here. 

 

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