Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street is partnering with Teachstone, an industry leader in professional development to empower and engage educators in social and emotional development, mathematics, and language and literacy.

The partnership has resulted in an exclusive series that uses Sesame Workshop’s "knowledge of child development and research-based strategies for meeting the needs of individual learners” and Teachstone’s expertise in professional development solutions targeted to the individual teacher to take professional development to a new level.

Specifically, "[t]he partnership provides an innovative and beneficial series for teachers on myTeachstone™, the online CLASS implementation service that pairs classroom observation data with personalized professional development."

According to Akimi Gibson, VP & Education Publisher at Sesame Learning, Sesame Workshop has become involved with Teachstone to use its knowledge of "research-based, engaging media experiences” to help both teachers and children grow both in and outside of the classroom."

"Sesame knows what children need to thrive cognitively and socially, particularly in the critical early years of learning, and how to use the power of media—television, radio, books, video, and interactive technology—to impact children's school readiness and long-term developmental success.”

Teachstone, on the other hand, knows how to empower educators to use these research-based tactics to help children improve.

"Teachstone has trained and certified over 35,000 classroom observers to gather data on the effectiveness of classroom interactions. Teachstone helps early childhood programs around the world use that data to build programs that provide professional development solutions tailored to teachers' individual strengths and challenges,” said the company in a statement.

Former educator and current Chief Strategy Officer of Teachstone, Rebecca Berlin, explains why she’s excited about the Sesame Workshop partnership.

"What I like most about the courses is that they provide engaging aha moments for teachers to connect with the content and tie that learning back to the work they are doing in their classrooms. And best of all, teachers are reminded of the ‘why' they entered teaching: the series features media procured from Sesame’s vast library that triggers memories of when they were young learners themselves,” she said on Teachstone’s site.

Read more about the partnership here.

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor

9/8/2016