About Our Work
At All Learners Network, we use the 5 key components to help math leaders and teachers support all students in becoming successful mathematicians. We teach educators to use these effective strategies to help all children learn.
Why ALN?
COO/Lead Facilitator Sandi Stanhope shares what makes the ALN approach so valuable for educators.
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High Leverage Concepts (HLCs) are key mathematical understandings that students will need to be successful in the following year of school. For example, all students need to demonstrate understanding of the HLC in first grade – adding and subtracting numbers to 120 – to be successful in second grade where they will be adding and subtracting numbers within 1,000. HLCs are the focus of most/all remedial efforts at a particular grade level.
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All Learners uses a workshop-style approach to lessons in order to leverage both inclusion and differentiation for optimal student learning. Instruction in ALN is focused on the use of conceptual models to facilitate individual student understanding. Multiple ways to solve (and understand) problems are encouraged. The elements of the All Learners Lessons include:
Launch. Also called Number Sense Routines, include Number Talks or a short problem.
Main Lesson. Focused on heterogeneous problem solving and student discourse.
Math Menu. A differentiated part of the lesson used for remediation and the presentation of “just right” practice and reflection.
Closure. A time for sharing, reflection, and formative assessment.
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Instructional coaches and teacher leaders are the key participants in All Learners Network.
We provide tools to support the work and help instructional leaders develop their pedagogical skill and to interpret and use assessment data for better first instruction.
Leaders learn together in ALN cohort groups so they can deepen their knowledge and skill in supporting all learners who struggle with math.
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The instructional leaders who participate in ALN are driven by what works for all learners. They focus on instructional practices that support all learners to demonstrate understanding of High Leverage Concepts.
ALN coaches try on new practices, revise tools (like the High Leverage Assessments), and adjust techniques (like Clinical Interviews).
As teachers and coaches in the field find success, results are shared throughout All Learners Network so others can benefit from these new practices.
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All Learners Network is focused on the success of every child. We believe children can only be successful in mathematics if they construct their own understanding from experience.
Since each learner has unique qualities, a big emphasis of our work is on understanding how students think in order to provide them with the kinds of experiences that will deepen their conceptual understanding or make it more efficient.
We use specific coaching tools like Formative Probes, Clinical Interviews, Collaborative Studies to help teachers and leaders get good information on what students understand.
This becomes on ongoing cycle of improvement to improve math instruction.
Our Story
How All Learners Network became a premier provider of professional learning for math educators.
In 2015, Dr. John Tapper was working with math coaches in a school district in northern Vermont. John and the instructional coaches were discussing spring math assessment results. The conversation had centered around what accommodations would have to be made for students who had underperformed. The sense was that this April assessment told us what we needed to know about the next year’s math groupings.
This wasn’t anything unusual. In school districts everywhere, leaders plan for those students who are not progressing. In some ways, this district was engaged in extra planning. But the act of acknowledging that in some sense, we had failed some students did not sit well with the group.
“Teachers always say, ‘All kids can learn’” one of the voices in the group said. “They even put signs that say that in the entrance to school buildings. Why is it we don’t act as if that’s true?”
In response to those words, the All Learners Project was born.
The All Learners Project involved John Tapper, three visionary district leaders in Vermont, Maine, and Maryland, and thousands of teachers and students in an ongoing project to explore ways to make mathematics accessible to every student. Each school district organized a cadre of coaches to help support teachers to make changes to their math instructional practices. The districts received professional development from John and colleagues. And an ongoing dialog to share important practices that worked in the field was started.
Work on the All Learners Project was organized around five key principles:
High Leverage Concepts to focus instruction.
A Main Lesson/Menu approach to foster inclusion and differentiation.
A systems approach to improve that included the use of coaches and implementation science.
Reliance on formative assessment practices to inform instruction.
A Rapid Cycle of Inquiry to encourage participants to look for in-the-field solutions to frequent problems.
At the end of each year, participants would gather to share notes on their successes and to make plans to improve the shared understanding of instruction. The first year, this happened on the eastern shore of Maryland. The year after, all the participants gathered in Burlington, Vermont.
In 2018, the Vermont Agency of Education wanted John to share the All Learners Project with others around the state. To serve that purpose, and to expand the network of colleagues with whom he worked, John founded the All Learners Network, LLC (ALN).
Since then, ALN has been providing professional development for hundreds of math educators and school leaders through in-person professional development and online resources.
When the pandemic closed schools in the spring of 2020, ALN was one of the first to step forward to help teachers serve students. ALN offered weekly online lessons and activities for teachers and students in grades K-8 at no cost. And we launched a weekly ALN Math Talk podcast where educators gathered to learn and interact. It was during this time that ALN also released online versions of its most popular professional offerings – Math for All Learners, Math Menu, and Specialized Math Instruction. These were turned into completely virtual, on-demand activities to expand access for more educators to explore all the ALN has to offer.
Our Mission
Recently, the All Learners Network has entered a new phase in its mission to provide high-quality professional development and learning to math teachers.
Our goal, as always, is to empower greater success for the children we teach so they can take advantage of the opportunities that math provides. We know that math is often a key that opens doors for students to access college and career readiness.
Our new phase includes the purchasing of a new Learning Center space in Burlington, Vermont — and greatly expanded professional development and learning offerings available to educators both online and in-person. ALN also redesigned the delivery of content to focus on offering shorter workshops at better times of day to expand access for more teachers to take part.
“ALN is about opening doors, creating new learning pathways. We are making professional development more focused, more comfortable, and more convenient.“
As part of this renewed effort, we catalyzed our vision to articulate the “why” of our organization.
Here are the foundational principles that motivate our work and make working at All Learners Network more like a vacation than a job.
“We believe that learning math is a right for students because so much of their future success depends on it.”
Some of the things that students learn in school are interesting. Some are helpful. Some are simply ways to socialize children to our social norms. A few of the ways children spend their time in school, though, have profound effects on the rest of their lives. Most of us know (or should know) that the ability to read is closely tied to income and positive involvement in the community. What about math? Children who are successful with math are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to attend college, and tend to earn more money. This can be true even for students who aren’t in STEM careers.
And yet, the quality of math instruction and student achievement is often (perhaps usually) lower for children of color, children who live in poverty, or children with learning differences. In most cases, children do not have a choice where they go to school. If they attend a school with high poverty, for example, they are less likely to get good math instruction. They are less likely to be successful with math. And they are less likely to take advantage of all that math success offers.
At ALN we think this is a situation that needs attention and we are committed to equity in education. Every child deserves a skillful math teacher. Math for all means every child deserves the chance to be successful with math. Our mission is to offer every teacher the tools they need to support all of their students. There is no “math gene.” Just because her father wasn’t good at math doesn’t mean his daughter won’t be. More than anything else – curriculum, materials, etc. – student success with math is the product of excellent differentiated instruction. Good math teachers develop their skills during effective professional development. ALN is laser-focused on providing this level of instructional strategies in math to support teachers and to help them to be successful with their students. Every child deserves an inspired, skillful teacher.
“Learning to be a good math teacher starts with receiving good math instruction.”
Teachers should expect good teaching at professional development. All Learners is dedicated to “walking our talk.” Sitting through professional development, rather than be engaged in the activity, can be frustrating. As professionals, we need to know what good teaching feels like from a learner’s perspective. We need to have a sense of what effective instruction looks like and sounds like. This is why all of ALN’s offerings are tested and revised to be sure that the pedagogy used in them – not just the content of the workshops – represents best practices for adult learning.
We focus on two important principles:
The learner does the work.
What learners have to say to each other is often more important than what the teacher has to say to them.
In following these principles, we include problem-solving, small and large group discussions, fishbowl and jigsaw activities, and reflective writing in our workshops, seminars, and courses. Just like the students, we teach; we want our participants to find personal pathways into learning. We want them to refine their thinking by sharing their ideas with others. And we want to offer participants interesting things to do to prompt their new thinking and realizations. When teachers have these experiences, they are better equipped to bring new learning to the children they teach.
Environments for learning matter. A learner should work in the most productive environment available to them.
As teachers, we put a lot of thought into the design of spaces in our classrooms. Teachers know, for example, that when students sit together, collaboration is easier. Being together in a meeting area helps to create a comfortable, familiar, and collaborative space for sharing ideas. The idea that classroom space contributes to happiness and productivity has been a part of elementary class thinking for decades.
What about when teachers are learning?
We have all managed to do good work while sitting in tiny chairs, or un-air-conditioned libraries, or teacher lounges. Being flexible is part of what makes for a good teacher.
Wouldn’t it be better, though, if professionals had the chance to meet in comfortable surroundings, with professional support available? During the pandemic, many of us have worked from our living rooms and found that it can be nice to be comfortable. Imagine if planning meetings and professional development took place in a space like that. At ALN, we did.
Design for our new Learning Center and future offerings start from a focus on the notion that environments for learning matter. The Learning Center offers comfortable “living room” spaces for meetings and professional learning. Besides, we will offer a wide variety of math PD that can be accessed virtually, to allow teachers to learn in ways that are convenient to their schedules and environments.
At the All Learners Network, we believe in professional development to support math learning for all students regardless of ability or circumstance. We believe that teachers learn best when they experience good math instruction modeled during their professional development and learning opportunities, in an environment most supportive of their collaboration and growth. We are committed to better math differentiated instruction for children, by supporting every math teacher to be effective for every student.
John Tapper, PhD, ALN Founder/CEO
