We understand how teacher professional development functions at scale throughout the teacher lifecycle, from pre-service preparation and early-career induction to ongoing in-service learning and coaching support. This includes examining how different combinations of training, coaching, peer learning, and tools influence classroom practice, and how instructional coaches and middle-tier leaders at block and district levels enable or constrain sustained reform.

Teachers work in classrooms shaped by linguistic diversity, multigrade settings, socio-economic constraints, and institutional norms. We want to better understand how these contextual factors influence the design and effectiveness of teacher development efforts, and how programs adapt as they move across classrooms, schools, districts, and states. This area of inquiry focuses on documenting patterns of adaptation that preserve instructional intent while remaining responsive to local realities.

SEF is particularly interested in how education reforms endure beyond pilots and external support. This includes studying shifts in ownership from external partners to system actors, the role of middle-tier leaders and institutions, and the indicators that meaningfully capture depth, quality, and spread of reform. Our goal is to generate insights that help systems scale what works without diluting impact.