"There was a lot of other people going through similar issues with kids and they offered solutions I never thought of."
Angela - PLC participant, Southern Oregon
Research and Evidence-Based Professional Development for K12 and Early Learning
Cultivate is the professional learning collaborative within the Center for Childhood Safety and Wellbeing (CSAW) at the University of Oregon, equipping educators and youth-serving professionals with research-informed training and implementation support.
Cultivate partners with ESDs, Districts and Schools to deliver research and evidence-based Professional Development that supports developing High Quality Environments for Children & Adults to learn and work.
Our Professional Development is rooted in MicroPD video lessons. MicroPDs are short (8-15 minutes long) animated videos that teach research and evidence-based strategies specific to a topic or skill our school partners have identified as important. We aim for our MicroPDs to cut down on the time and complexity usually involved when adopting and training staff on evidence and research-based practices. Each lesson is accompanied by discussion questions and scenarios for application all embedded within preset agendas, slides and quick guides.
Participants consistently report that Cultivate’s professional development feels different because it is designed specifically for the real world roles that educators hold. Educational assistants, teacher leaders, and administrators report that our content is practical, immediately applicable, and grounded in the day-to-day realities of schools.
Developed with educators, for educators, participants have space to reflect on their unique responsibilities, build on concrete strategies, and feel recognized as professionals with vast expertise to share. Across districts and ESDs, participants note that our PD increases job confidence, clarity, and collaboration, making the learning not only relevant but sustainable and impactful for both staff and students.
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I would like to share with you my personal experience with our staff participating in the Cultivate.org professional development model because of my first hand experience of the value it is bringing to our program. We've been using it long enough (3 years) to have experienced both the challenges associated with staff buy-in and how to build it into our overall PD plan as well as the benefits of the micro‑PD content connecting directly with our daily classroom practices and honoring our educators time. Spreading the micro PD training across the year has led to our staff reflecting on their current practices, trying new strategies, and building their confidence gradually which I can see is leading to meaningful and lasting change. Most importantly, I think we are building a stronger culture of continuous improvement and collaboration by using this resource.
As a result of Cultivate's training:
- Teachers are identifying and determining what to practice and implement in their classrooms as opposed to supervisors.
- Teachers and supervisors are working together to implement their learning goals and celebrate them.
- The relevant content of the training matches interests and needs in classrooms that occur across the year.
- Re-visiting topics and tools over time, increases the depth of learning and also triggers reminders of foundational practices that can be overlooked or forgotten.
- The flexible structure provides opportunities to experiment with how to build the content into staff’s schedules in meaningful ways such as: onboarding, classroom team meetings and times that are protected for PD which is minimizing frustration and the feeling of being overwhelmed by adding training to their plates.
Natalya McComas - Early Childhood CARES, Classroom Program Coordinator