Institutes are useful tools for providing staff development in a more comprehensive format. Spending 2-5 days of concentrated time communicating, learning, and planning with team members can give your school or district the drive to either begin or to fine-tune a reform initiative.

For example, school districts can contract for a week-long summer institute on the five NCTM content standards. Each day is devoted to a different strand, with team members first learning more about the strand and then working together to plan lessons, to create problem solving tasks, and to develop assessments. One such team went on to select a strand that every classroom in the school began the year with. With the help of Galusha Hill Consulting both teacher and student progress in that strand was then revisited throughout the school year.