Laura Shankland

Senior TA Consultant

Laura Shankland is a senior technical assistance consultant at AIR. She has more than ten years of project management and education experience, overseeing the development of a range of resources for Grades K–12 educators. Shankland provides technical assistance, professional development, and communication support for AIR’s work with the Illinois 21st CCLC afterschool programs, overseeing the development of a quarterly newsletter and a resource bulletin that are distributed to grantees. She also assists with the planning and implementation of technical assistance workshops and the annual conference.

Shankland’s previous technical assistance work includes her involvement in the National Partnership for Quality Afterschool, a study that aimed to identify and share best practices among 21st CCLC afterschool programs. Shankland conducted site visits to afterschool programs and used findings on promising practices to inform resources for afterschool practitioners. She created and distributed AfterWords, an e-bulletin that won the Association of Educational Publishers Distinguished Achievement Award. She also led the development of a series of instructional and professional development guides that supplement the online Afterschool Training Toolkit.

Previously, Shankland worked at Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, where she was an editor and project lead in the development of educational resources. Her education experience includes teaching fifth grade in a bilingual classroom in Phoenix, Arizona, as a Teach for America corps member, and overseeing a summer English as a second language program at the Boys & Girls Clubs in Scottsdale, Arizona. She currently serves on the board of directors of Austin Discovery School, a charter school in Central Texas.

Laura Shankland
Expertise
Education
Afterschool and Expanded Learning
District and School Improvement
English Learners

M.A., Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin; B.A., History and Political Science, Colorado College

Contact Laura Shankland

+1.512.476.6861
Related Work
Teachers talking in the hallway

Spotlight on Teacher Professional Learning

06 Oct 2023
When teachers learn, students learn. For decades, AIR has conducted studies of teacher professional learning and helped practitioners use evidence to develop, implement, test, and scale professional learning programs.

Studying Successful Approaches to Content-focused Professional Learning

Content-focused professional learning is a common strategy for improving student outcomes, but it isn’t always effective. The National Writing Project has been particularly successful at designing scalable professional learning programs that have a positive impact on student achievement in writing, according to a series of randomized controlled trials. To generate ...

Afterschool Training Toolkit

30 Jun 2008
The best afterschool programs do two things: they engage students in fun activities that create a desire to learn, and they build on what students are learning during the school day to extend the knowledge they already have. This online toolkit provides resources for developing fun, innovative, and academically enriching ...