Professional Development

Teachstone, Sesame Workshop Partner on Personalized PD Series

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 09/06/16

Teachstone and Sesame Workshop have partnered to launch a new professional development series on myTeachstone, a service that combines classroom observation and personalized professional development.

"Combining Sesame Workshop's knowledge of child development and research-based strategies for meeting the needs of individual learners with Teachstone's expertise in professional development solutions targeted to the individual teacher, the two have co-produced an exclusive series of courses that focus on social and emotional development, mathematics and language and literacy," according to a news release. "The courses provide teachers with proven, everyday strategies for improving teaching effectiveness, and are now available exclusively on myTeachstone."

myTeachstone is based on the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), Teachstone's system for assessing interactions between teachers and students, developed by Teachstone co-founders Bob Pianta  and Bridget Hamre of the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education.

"We are thrilled to team up with an organization that shares our commitment to unlocking the potential of great teaching," said Rebecca Berlin, Teachstone's chief strategy officer, in a prepared statement. "We see this partnership as an opportunity to engage our users like never before and empower them to take their professional learning to the next level."

"We are happy to be able to employ the same proven combination of research-based, engaging media experiences we've always used to help children around the world grow smarter, stronger, and kinder, to give teachers the insights and supports they need to make a difference for each child — in the classroom and beyond," said Akimi Gibson, vice president and education publisher at Sesame Learning, in a news release.