WIDE World
HGSE Professors David Perkins and Stone Wiske

WIDE World (Wide-scale Interactive Development for Educators) is an innovative professional development program based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The program's goal – pursued primarily through online courses – is to build professional communities of teachers and school leaders engaged in learning about teaching for understanding and educational improvement.

<visit the WIDE World website>

Summary

WIDE collaborates with school systems to engage teachers and instructional leaders in online and in-person professional development experiences that both teach and model best practices. The program combines 30 years of research and practice to address the top educational challenge of the 21st century: helping schools implement sustained, systemic improvement in teaching practice and student performance.

Teachers usually join WIDE World as part of a school or district initiative and take a series of online courses focused on implementing strategies to help students better understand content. The courses build on the "Teaching for Understanding" framework, which emphasizes developing learners' understanding through active learning that is directly linked to clear goals and supported through ongoing assessment and coaching.

Teachers who wish to improve their education leadership skills may be eligible to participate in a second pathway, where they receive training as teacher leaders and become coaches in WIDE online courses. A third pathway, designed for school leaders, focuses on creating a school- or district-wide culture centered on student understanding, a shared language of performance-based assessment, and a strategy for school improvement.