Professional Learning Leadership Plan
Fit With the Professional Learning Need
The unique challenges faced by teachers under a 5x5 accelerated instruction schedule are myriad and difficult to address. Unfortunately, the district provided no professional learning to manage these challenges. During my matriculation in this Master's program, I developed a framework to address the issue at hand, but specific professional development and learning approaches are needed to achieve effective results in this context. Communities of Practice, which Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner (2015) define as groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to improve that practice through regular interaction, work because the three essential components — Domain, Community, and Practice — work together beyond single-session trainings and are teacher-focused to ensure continuing skill development and action planning without the need for time-intensive interventions. It also provides an explicit structure for the professional learning: Domain is accelerated instruction; Community is the teachers, specialists, and department chairs; Practice is the integration of the HABL framework to increase retention, provide depth, and increase transfer while providing evidence of mastery.
The professional learning need isn’t something as banal as using sentence stems, which is actually the campus initiative this year, or even learning a new framework; it is to develop the ability to redesign instruction while increasing accountability and maintaining standards at a time when teachers have less time for reteaching, retesting, intervention, and recovery from chronic student absenteeism.
Because the year is compressed into a single semester and new students rotate into classes twice a year, the issue is one of instructional design. Accelerated instruction requires teachers to rethink what is essential, how students process information, how generative learning increases knowledge, what constitutes evidence of student success, and how pedagogical and TPACK decisions can be adjusted quickly enough to scaffold and spiral teaching effectively within days, not two or six weeks. Although the HABL framework, which is organized around the instructional cycle of Physical Input → Physical Encoding → Digital Artifact → Digital Assessment → Metacognition, seeks to address some of the specific concerns teachers have around this type of instructional constraint, a predetermined set of procedures isn’t enough to give teachers who need to make significant progress with students on a compressed timeline.
Fit With the Participants
For this professional learning, I would begin with a small cohort of teachers: one from Fine Arts, two from CTE, and a 4x4 core (math, science, social studies, and English). This cross-section of professionals has deep content knowledge, can support collaboration, has some technical skill, and has comprehensive assessment knowledge that can be shared, compared, and built upon. This is a core tenet of the Standards for Professional Learning Conditions for Success: engage in continuous improvement, build collaboration skills and capacity, and share responsibility for improving learning for all students (Learning Forward, 2022). This is a strength, not a liability. For example, the core teachers are well-versed in preparing students for the STAAR but have no idea what the Adobe ACE or ASE tests look like. Welding includes both objective questions and a practical. Fine Arts is performance-based and uses rubrics as if they were second nature. Core subjects are content masters and technical gurus, but their knowledge is outdated compared to that of a computer science teacher. There is considerable power in these partnerships.
Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner's (2015) concept of a shared practice elevates Communities of Practice beyond the traditional expert-to-participant professional development we have today. A teacher’s practical knowledge is a resource that should be shared and developed rather than isolated in their classrooms and only observed during walkthroughs and T-TESS observations. Teachers are the most important and influential contributors to professional knowledge. Working in a community not only strengthens this contribution but also builds a deep repertoire of tools, experience, strategies, and approaches.
Dzieciatko-Szendrei et al. (2024) found that teacher communities are characterized by interaction among participants, knowledge exchange, and collective practices aimed at improving teaching and learning. Their findings are essential to this design approach. Assigning teachers to a group or labeling an existing meeting as a Community of Practice won’t work. The community must have a genuine connection to its participants and their practice, and a structured approach to the problems and to the group itself. By honoring participants and respecting their knowledge and experience within a community they feel comfortable in, real progress can be made.
Fit With the Organizational Context
Although there are many obstacles, the only influence on the work that can be foreseen and planned for is the instructional focus the administration has applied to the entire school. Since these are the basis for snapshots and walkthroughs, they must be addressed. The district is emphasizing the TSIA, and English is a particular focus.
A Community of Practice is well-suited to this organizational context because accelerated instruction represents a change in the system and not the work. Even though the instructional calendar has been compressed, every school from Middle to High School is implementing the same change. The district and school organization is still responsible for accountability compliance and for increasing their TEA ratings. PLCs have proven ineffective time and again for structural organizational change, and other static models don’t have the mechanics built in to address the problems that emerge at the speed and frequency accelerated learning creates. Learning Forward's (2025) Standards for Professional Learning, particularly the Culture of Collaborative Inquiry standard, underscores continuous improvement, collaborative capacity, and shared responsibility for improving student learning. If we look more closely, the Learning Designs standard calls for professional learning that is contextualized, grounded in research, connected to participant needs, and structured to support sustained implementation. Furthermore, the Implementation standard further stresses long-term support, feedback, change management, and the sustained use of new practices. All of these can be addressed by the organization’s support, particularly the Office for Professional Development, and through the careful, structured use of Communities of Practice. Because the organization itself is presenting the change, creating this approach supports the organization while ensuring the change does not happen to its detriment.
Fit With the Desired Change in Practice
Because the desired change is in instructional practice rather than in compressing traditional instruction, Communities of Practice is my best choice for a professional learning approach. It shifts the emphasis from covering TEKS and prepping for tests to creating systems that preserve depth, retention, transfer, and mastery, and in my case, implementing a framework that allows the teacher to do so by examining student artifacts and formative evidence during instruction rather than waiting for summative assessments and benchmarks to do so.
For that reason, the Communities of Practice should center on evidence of implementation and learning rather than collaboration for its own sake or static meetings and follow-ups. The Community of Practice would serve as the professional learning and implementation structure for HABL, while HABL would serve as the instructional design framework. This creates a direct relationship between professional learning, classroom practice, evidence, reflection, and refinement, which is necessary for creating an environment where the HABL framework is not a disconnect, fly-by-night idea someone picked up at a convention, but an evidence-based approach to helping teachers address a real-life need in real time and continuing learning in a supportive, respectful, and research-based climate that leverages all of the strengths, appreciates the teachers' time and ability, and leads to significant instructional and institutional change. This represents not only a change in the teacher’s practice but also in the entire organization's practice.
Rationale for a Communities of Practice Approach
A Community of Practice fits this need because it allows teachers to continually make informed, supported judgments about curriculum, pacing, student artifacts from the HABL framework, formative assessment (including benchmarks and certification pretests), intervention, and mastery. Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner (2015) state that communities of practice allow teachers not only to exchange existing knowledge but also to solve problems, develop resources, and create new practices necessary for their students' success; therefore providing a clear structure in which educators can implement HABL approaches, effectively gather data and create action plans, discuss evidence with colleagues and implement changes, and refine their pedagogy in real time, not over time.
I am proposing this with a caveat. Communities of Practice are a long way from being a cure-all. Although Ventista and Brown's (2023) systematic review of 125 studies found that supporting ongoing coaching and collaborative continuing professional development that occurs frequently and over longer periods appears more promising than isolated professional development events, they did find that learning communities alone, when applied casually, did not establish a definite impact on student outcomes. Communities of Practice is not the stick that beats down all the problems of accelerated learning or any other significant paradigm shift, but the carrot that creates the conditions for collaboration that encourages teachers, improves implementation and practice, and builds capacity in learners and their students.
Figure 1
The HABL Community of Practice: An AI-generated infographic created with ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2026) based on author-developed content illustrating the Community of Practice cycle.
The Professional Learning Experience
This PLLP addresses the accelerated instruction model, which poses challenges for teachers in maintaining depth, retention, application, feedback, revision, and transfer within a compressed calendar. It is more than just teaching faster; it relies on changing pedagogy to meet the unique demands of teaching a traditionally year-long course in a single semester. So, the initial implementation will present HABL materials, physical workbooks, digital assignments, work-product artifacts, and formative assessments aligned to TEKS expectations (as well as other IBC, AP, or state test standards), organized as a Community of Practice rather than just a one-time workshop. Participants will learn HABL, implement it, gather evidence and data, revise their practice, and add their own collective expertise to the development of the framework (Fiorella & Mayer, 2015; Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015).
Figure 2
The HABL Community of Practice: AI-generated infographic created with ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2026) based on author-developed content illustrating the HABL-specific Community of Practice cycle and its three implementation domains.
The HABL instructional process remains:
Physical Input → Physical Encoding → Digital Artifact → Digital Assessment/Feedback → Metacognition, Revision, and Transfer (Fiorella & Mayer, 2015; Mishra & Koehler, 2006; Zimmerman, 2002).
Because the structure is based on Communities of Practice, participating teachers will not passively sit through professional development. Instead, they will identify authentic problems of practice and redesign existing lessons by implementing HABL routines. They will also bring student artifacts to CoP meetings and share successful and unsuccessful attempts. This will allow them to analyze evidence collaboratively, provide peer feedback, and develop instructional resources in real time. Then, they can also contribute exemplars for data and duplication and reflect on changes in student learning (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015).
Artificial Intelligence and Professional Learning
AI would not be necessary for this model of in-person meeting and sharing; however, with certain guidelines, AI use would be encouraged to create meeting artifacts that provide evidence and track growth. The specific guidelines I would implement would be:
AI use is encouraged for data disaggregation (numbers only) but not for data collection, organization, or creation. Student names, Teacher names, ID numbers, or any information that can identify an individual may never be entered into an AI model, whether online or on a local computer. Use of AI in this manner is strictly prohibited and violates HIPAA, FERPA, and the district AUP.
Please use AI to enhance and speed up the creation of classroom artifacts; however, generative learning must be respected, and AI may not replace genuine creation in the class or the meetings.
Please disclose all AI use and require students to do the same.
Leadership Roles and Responsibilities
Initial Leadership: HABL Teacher-Leader
Figure 3
The HABL Teacher-Leader Will: An AI-generated infographic created with ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2026) from author-developed content outlining the responsibilities of the HABL Teacher-Leader.
The initial instructional leader presenting should be a teacher-practitioner, facilitator, model, and coach who is already knowledgeable and experienced with the HABL framework, as the initiative is centered on classroom practice. The initial leader must be able to demonstrate how HABL operates in authentic accelerated-classroom conditions rather than presenting the framework in theory (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2018; Learning Forward, 2025).
The main functions of the HABL Teacher-Leader
• provide the initial explanation and modeling of the HABL framework;
• demonstrate HABL lessons and instructional routines;
• show how existing lessons can be redesigned without simply adding more assignments;
• guide teachers in identifying essential standards and outcomes;
• model physical-to-digital artifact creation;
• promote analysis of student artifacts;
• assist participants with lesson and unit redesign;
• facilitate the initial Community of Practice;
• coordinate implementation check-ins;
• share successful practices and implementation problems;
• connect HABL practices to TEKS, course outcomes, and IBC/certification expectations;
• gradually develop other participants as teacher leaders.
Campus Administrator: Sponsor and Organizational Leader
The campus administrator will support the initiative but will not serve as the primary instructional facilitator, as the administrator must work as a manager, connecting the classroom to the broader asset systems needed to ensure the teacher’s success. There must be a distinction, and the delineation is important. The HABL Teacher-Leader provides the instructional expertise, while the administrator creates the conditions that enable professional learning to become actual pedagogical practice. Each person will work most efficiently in the environment where they have the most influence.
Therefore, the administrator will:
• communicate visible support for the initiative;
• protect collaboration and professional learning time;
• connect HABL to campus instructional priorities;
• help remove organizational barriers;
• coordinate access to resources;
• protect space for experimentation and revision;
• ensure that implementation is not reduced to a compliance checklist;
• use teacher and student evidence to inform organizational decisions.
Instructional Coaches, Department Leaders, and District Curriculum and CTE Leaders
These leaders will provide ongoing implementation support by emphasizing evidence, action, implementation, and revision, rather than evaluation. This will enable these essential leaders to prepare teachers to implement a uniform, standards-aligned instructional model that strengthens TEKS mastery, supports IBC/certification outcomes, and aligns pacing and assessment with district benchmarks.
Timeline and Sequence
The initial professional learning cycle will be eight weeks using the Community of Practice as the central professional learning structure. The intent is not to have a permanent extra meeting requirement. Instead, HABL conversations become embedded in existing professional routines such as PLCs and department meetings.
Figure 4
HABL Community of Practice: 8-Week Implementation Timeline: AI-generated infographic created with ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2026) based on author-developed content showing the eight-week rollout, implementation sequence, and sustainability pathway for the HABL Community of Practice.
Implementation and Ongoing Support
Ongoing Evidence and Support Cycle
During implementation, the participants will use a two-week evidence cycle during which teachers will bring evidence of assessment performance and student artifact completion. They will be able to identify gaps, recognize patterns, and revise practices to improve quality. This will also be a time to address attendance and work-completion concerns and to gather data from implementation observations woven into standard walkthroughs.
The Community of Practice can then use the evidence to determine what students actually earned, where the learning broke down, what contributed to the breakdown, what needs to be retaught and how, and what should be kept for the next two-week cycle and what should be removed.
This can lead to responses to instructional issues that are relevant and data-driven. The teachers can create small-group reteaching, revised directions, scaffolding, and reassessment. They can also adjust their modeling, create and provide clearer exemplars, and regroup students as needed. This is a powerful tool for success. This structure keeps HABL fluid and not a collection of worksheets and Edpuzzles. HABL and the CoP are adaptive systems driven by data and evidence of learning.
Communication
Communication will emphasize from the beginning that HABL is not being added to teachers' workload, but rather a framework for redesigning the work teachers and students already do so that accelerated instruction doesn’t adversely affect accountability metrics but provides deeper evidence of learning, retention, revision, and transfer.
Figure 5
HABL Implementation Communication Cycle: AI-generated infographic created with ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2026) based on author-developed content showing communication as a cyclical process of preparation, implementation support, and feedback/response.
Time, Resources, and Organizational Support
Protected Time
Teachers will need protected time for initial framework learning and lesson redesign. They will also need time for meetings during which coaching, artifact analysis, and reflection and revision will occur. Existing structures and meetings, as well as district PD opportunities, should also be used whenever possible.
Resources: Existing HABL Materials
The initial AV class implementation already includes substantial instructional materials. Approximately 140 students are already using HABL workbooks that are over 90 pages long, with 45 pages on the front and back, making large-scale reprinting unrealistic. Therefore, implementation improvement will prioritize easy-to-reproduce teacher presentation materials, digital supplements, digital exemplar artifacts, specific teacher guides, and supplemental instructional resources. This is easier to accomplish than replacing the myriad of materials students already possess.
Resources: Technology
HABL's power lies in the interaction between physical and digital learning, but it should not depend on a single technology platform.
Resources may include:
• learning-management systems;
• digital assessment tools;
• production software;
• student devices;
• shared digital workspaces;
• portfolio systems;
• classroom production technologies.
Technology reinforces learning; it does not define HABL or replace instruction.
Instructional Resources
Teachers will need access to:
• HABL planning templates;
• artifact exemplars;
• course standards;
• TEKS;
• certification competencies;
• formative-assessment resources;
• student reflection structures;
• common rubrics;
• intervention resources.
Anticipated Barriers and Leadership Responses
With HABL implemented in the current AV1 and AV2 classrooms, the anticipated barriers are known, and responses have already been developed and put in place. This is a massive boon to the work and provides a clear path to improving the PLLP, practice, and implementation.
Figure 6
Common Barriers, Leadership Responses, and Responsible Leadership Structures: AI-generated infographic created with ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2026) based on author-developed content identifying implementation barriers, the leaders or groups responsible for addressing them, and the corresponding leadership responses.
Sustainability
Sustainability will depend entirely on embedding HABL into the existing PLC and meeting structures, rather than keeping it as a separate initiative. After the eight-week cycle, the Teacher-Leader will transfer responsibilities to emerging teacher leaders, create distributed ownership, and reduce dependence on the one-person, one-leader model of the past. Also, creating a shared repository of templates, exemplars, assessments, and aligned resources should meet the standard Bates (2015) set as a professional learning system that is continually updated. This move toward teachers who take ownership of learning, implementation, and leadership meets what Zimmerman (2002) describes as a self-directive process. This move makes the effort a more focused, long-term endeavor that will support the entire school organization well after the initial training.
Emerging HABL Teacher-Leaders
As participants gain expertise and build and share their experience, selected teachers will be able to take on additional leadership responsibilities. They can facilitate CoP meetings, model lessons, lead artifact analysis, support their colleagues, create new workflows across disciplines and classes, mentor new teachers, and create and contribute to a resource database and repository for all teachers to draw on. Therefore, leadership naturally shifts from the HABL Teacher-Leader to the collaborative group, and from the group to a more distributed, teacher-based leadership structure supported by the administration.
AI Disclosure:
ChatGPT was used to create the graphics and to compile, verify, and re-verify the sources used in this post. Also, Grammarly was used to ensure compliance with proper writing mechanics. All ideas and research, as well as the HABL framework and writing, are the original author's work.
References
Bambrick-Santoyo, P. (2018). Leverage leadership 2.0: A practical guide to building exceptional schools. Jossey-Bass. Wiley Newsroom
Bambrick-Santoyo, P. (2019). Driven by data 2.0: A practical guide to improve instruction. Jossey-Bass. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119564614 Wiley Online Library
Bates, A. W. (2015). Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. Tony Bates Associates Ltd. BCcampus Open Publishing
Dzieciatko-Szendrei, B., Pantić, N., Joksimović, S., Gašević, D., & Viry, G. (2024). Systematic review of the operational definitions and indicators of teacher communities. Educational Research Review, 45, Article 100640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2024.100640
Fiorella, L., & Mayer, R. E. (2015). Learning as a generative activity: Eight learning strategies that promote understanding. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107707085 Cambridge University Press
Learning Forward. (2022). Standards for professional learning. https://standards.learningforward.org/
Learning Forward. (2025). Standards for professional learning (2025 ed.). https://standards.learningforward.org/standards-for-professional-learning/
Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017–1054. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00684.x Sage Journals
Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159–1168. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614524581 PubMed
Ventista, O. M., & Brown, C. (2023). Teachers' professional learning and its impact on students' learning outcomes: Findings from a systematic review. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 8(1), Article 100565. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2023.100565
Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). An introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses. Wenger-Trayner. https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/
Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory Into Practice, 41(2), 64–70. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15430421TIP4102_2
