Inflection LLC · Service Catalogue
Coaching, professional learning, AI support, and family engagement for NYC schools. Built on one spine: the Learning Arc, our evidence-based framework for durable teaching and learning.
We grow change that sustains itselfInflection partners with schools to reach their goals by growing the people who shape student experience every day. Our core competency is adult learning. Our method is Transformational Coaching, working at the level of behavior, belief, and ways of being so growth holds after we leave.
The Spine
Coaching, workshops, and AI support all run on one evidence-based framework for what works in K-12 teaching. Four pillars, ten components, one arc from Emerging to Sustaining.
Higher-Order & Critical Thinking · Authentic & Transferable Learning
Explicit Instruction · Checks & Feedback · Scaffolding & Differentiation
Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Student Ownership & Choice · Peer Collaboration
Culturally Responsive & SEL Practice · Collaborative & Connected Community
Service Line 01
Job-embedded Transformational Coaching, delivered on-site with a cohort of four to five teachers. We work at the level of behavior, belief, and ways of being, so what shifts belongs to the teacher and carries forward.
Coaching is where pedagogy becomes practice. We do not arrive with a program to hand down. We begin with a question: what does great teaching look like in your classroom, and for which students? From there, coach and teacher build forward together.
Lasting instructional change does not come from a workshop. Adults, like students, construct new understanding against years of belief and professional identity. That shift happens in relationship, inside real practice, not in a conference room. Our coaching attends to the whole educator, and treats equity as something that lives inside every instructional decision rather than an initiative running alongside the work.
Delivery: on-site, with a cohort of four to five teachers.
Excellent instruction is the foundation. Technology, including AI, amplifies what a teacher already does. We build the pedagogical clarity that makes any tool useful.
Real change reaches the assumptions beneath practice, and the identity beneath those. It happens in a trusting coach-teacher relationship.
What gets assigned, whose voice is drawn out, how a teacher responds to an unexpected answer. A coach in the room can name it in ways a rubric cannot.
The Coaching Process
Five steps, run with the cohort across the engagement and tailored to each teacher's starting point.
Coach and teacher examine classroom data, student work, and instructional patterns together. We begin from where you are, not where a rubric says you should be.
You name one or two goals anchored in what students need to know and do. Specific, observable, and owned by you. The coach makes them actionable.
Support arrives inside practice: classroom visits, co-planning, coach modeling, and debrief. The mode shifts to match where you are and what the work requires.
Progress is tracked through evidence you can both see: student work, observation notes, and reflection across the cycle. Adjustments happen in real time.
What you learn belongs to your school. The coach helps you carry it into PLCs and grade teams, so growth compounds rather than stays private.
What a cycle can focus on
A cohort chooses a focus tied to the Learning Arc. We tailor the specific practice and the evidence to the classrooms during Self-Assessment.
Move questioning and tasks from recall toward analysis, evaluation, and synthesis, so every student is asked to reason, not just the confident few.
Build the wait time and task design that let students persevere through complex problems instead of being rescued at the first sign of difficulty.
Design tasks that carry skills into new and authentic contexts, so mastery in one setting shows up where it counts.
Tighten modeling, worked examples, and clear learning targets so new content lands before students are asked to run with it.
Install routines that surface what students understand mid-lesson and turn that signal into a usable next move, for the teacher and the student.
Design supports and entry points, including for multilingual learners and students with IEPs, so the same rigor is reachable by all.
Build reflection, goal-setting, and self-monitoring routines so students can name where they are and what to do next.
Move decisions about how to reach a goal toward the learner, building autonomy and motivation without losing rigor.
Build the relational and cultural conditions, and the brain-based moves, that make demanding work feel safe to attempt.
Design discourse, peer feedback, and group structures so students learn from one another, not only from the teacher.
The same approach extends to leaders, organized around a real leadership project: assessment, goal-setting, inquiry and problem-solving toward an instructional vision, then reflection. Available as an individual track or alongside a teacher cohort.
Service Line 02
Professional learning mapped to the ten components of the Learning Arc. Every session is CTLE-eligible, hands-on, and built to change practice, not just inform it.
Workshops build the practices the Learning Arc describes. Each session is tagged to the component it develops and grounded in the frameworks NYC schools already work in: the science of reading, the math instructional shifts, Danielson, MTSS, multilingual-learner practice, and the Portrait of a Graduate. Run them standalone or as the grounding step before a coaching cycle.
Delivery: on-site or virtual.
Most tasks ask students to recall or follow steps. This session shows you how to lift everyday work toward analysis, evaluation, and creation, the deeper learning Danielson names in Domain 3, so every student does the thinking, not just the fast finishers.
Participants leave witha redesigned task and a quick tool for auditing the demand of what you assign.
The NYC math shifts move the lesson from the teacher modeling a procedure to students making sense of an unfamiliar problem first. Learn to launch with a low-entry problem, protect the struggle, and formalize the math only after students reason their way in.
Participants leave witha sense-making launch for an upcoming unit and the talk moves to sustain it.
Comprehension grows when students return to the text for evidence, not when they trade opinions about it. Build sequences of text-dependent questions that drive students through complex text toward analysis and argument, aligned to the NYC Reads focus on knowledge and comprehension.
Participants leave witha text-dependent question set for a complex text you teach.
Multilingual learners are too often handed simplified content and lower expectations. Working from an asset-based stance, learn to scaffold the language while holding the thinking rigorous, so multilingual students stay in grade-level, higher-order work.
Participants leave witha scaffolded version of a rigorous task that keeps the cognitive demand for MLLs.
New York's move toward competency-based education asks students to demonstrate learning through evidence, not hours logged. Design authentic performance tasks that have students apply knowledge in real contexts and produce work that proves what they can do.
Participants leave withone performance task with success criteria and an authentic audience.
The Portrait of a Graduate calls for interdisciplinary, real-world learning connected to life beyond school. Learn to build units that cross content areas and link to careers, community, and problems worth solving.
Participants leave witha unit sketch that connects your content to a real-world or career context.
Students master a skill in one setting and freeze when the context changes. Build the task design and practice that move learning from the taught example to new and authentic situations, the transfer that durable, competency-based learning requires.
Participants leave witha near-to-far transfer sequence for a skill students struggle to apply.
Multilingual learners build language fastest inside meaningful content, not isolated drills. Using content-and-language integration, plan authentic tasks that develop disciplinary thinking and academic language at the same time.
Participants leave withan authentic task with paired content and language objectives.
NYC Reads puts the science of reading at the center, with explicit, systematic foundational skills in the early grades. Learn to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency directly and to use decodable texts so every K-2 student gets on the path to reading.
Participants leave witha foundational-skills routine and a plan to use decodables with purpose.
Comprehension depends on what students already know and the words they hold. Following the knowledge-building emphasis of NYC Reads, learn to plan for background knowledge and vocabulary so students can access complex text.
Participants leave witha knowledge-and-vocabulary plan for an upcoming text or unit.
Sense-making opens a problem, but students still need secure, efficient procedures. Learn to formalize the math after the struggle, connecting students' strategies and representations to accurate, fluent methods, the back half of the math shift.
Participants leave witha lesson arc that moves from student sense-making to a named, secure procedure.
The most powerful tier in any MTSS is strong universal instruction, because it prevents the need for intervention. Learn what high-quality Tier 1 looks like across a lesson and how to make grade-level access the default for every student.
Participants leave witha Tier 1 look-fors tool for strengthening core instruction.
A check for understanding only matters if it changes what you do next. Build quick, reliable checks that surface what students actually understand mid-lesson, plus the moves to adjust on the spot.
Participants leave witha set of in-lesson checks and a simple decision rule for acting on them.
Most feedback arrives too late and asks for too little. Learn to give timely, specific feedback that names the next step and puts the cognitive work back on the student.
Participants leave witha feedback routine that is manageable and tied to success criteria.
Screening data is only useful when it reaches instruction. Learn to read NYC Reads screening and diagnostic data for strengths and gaps and to turn it into specific next moves for groups and individuals.
Participants leave witha protocol for translating reading data into a week of targeted instruction.
An MTSS runs on data-driven decisions: universal screening, progress monitoring, and a clear response. Learn how the cycle works at the classroom level so you can tell whether a support is working and adjust intensity before students fall behind.
Participants leave witha simple progress-monitoring routine and decision points for your classroom.
Separate tasks for separate groups often lower the ceiling for the students who most need challenge. Following the math shifts, design one low-floor, high-ceiling task that gives every learner an entry point and room to climb.
Participants leave witha low-floor, high-ceiling version of a task you already teach.
Multilingual learners need access to grade-level content, not a watered-down version of it. Learn to plan language scaffolds, sentence frames, visuals, and structured talk, that open rigorous content without doing the thinking for students.
Participants leave witha scaffold set matched to a grade-level task and your MLLs' language levels.
The hardest part of scaffolding is taking it away. Learn to design temporary supports and fade them deliberately so students move toward doing the work on their own.
Participants leave witha scaffold-and-fade plan for a challenging skill in your content.
MTSS promises the right support, at the right time, at the right intensity. Learn how Tier 1, 2, and 3 supports look inside a single classroom and how to match intensity to need without pulling students out of grade-level learning.
Participants leave witha tiered-support map for a class, from universal to intensive.
Strong learners notice when they are stuck and do something about it. Build routines that make thinking visible and teach students to plan, monitor, and adjust their own learning.
Participants leave withtwo metacognitive routines ready to use this week.
In a competency-based system, students need to know what they are aiming for and judge their own progress toward it. Learn to set clear targets with students and build self-assessment against evidence, not points.
Participants leave witha student-facing goal-and-evidence tool tied to your standards.
Reflection is where learning consolidates, when it is more than a feelings check. Design quick, repeatable routines that get students naming what they learned and what they will do next.
Participants leave witha reflection routine built into an existing part of your lesson.
Multilingual learners can think deeply long before they have the English to show it. Provide the sentence frames and academic language that let MLLs reflect on and direct their own learning.
Participants leave witha bank of metacognitive language frames matched to your MLLs.
Agency is a design decision, not a personality trait. Build voice, choice, and responsibility into daily lessons so students take real ownership of the work, the student autonomy Danielson's Domain 2 describes.
Participants leave withconcrete moves to grow agency in a current unit.
When students help define what good work looks like, they own the standard. Learn to build success criteria with students and use them to drive self-assessment and revision.
Participants leave witha co-constructed success-criteria routine for a key task.
The Portrait of a Graduate can sound like a poster. Translate its attributes into daily practice, where students set directions, choose how to demonstrate learning, and own their pathway.
Participants leave witha practical way to make one Portrait attribute visible in your classroom.
Progress monitoring works best when students are in on it. Combine MTSS monitoring with student ownership so learners track their own data and movement toward targets.
Participants leave witha student-facing goal-tracking routine that mirrors your monitoring data.
The math shifts move discourse from explaining a finished answer to developing understanding together. Learn the talk moves and structures that get students noticing, wondering, and reasoning out loud throughout the lesson.
Participants leave witha set of math talk routines you can run regularly.
Productive talk does not happen by accident. Learn to structure and scaffold academic discourse so every student talks with purpose and conversation deepens understanding.
Participants leave witha discourse protocol and talk moves for your content.
Students who give good feedback learn to assess their own work. Build the protocols and norms that make peer feedback specific, kind, and useful.
Participants leave witha peer-critique protocol ready to use with students.
For multilingual learners, speaking is where academic language and reasoning grow. Using structured oral-language practice, get MLLs talking in complete, academic ways before and during writing.
Participants leave withstructured talk routines and frames that build MLL academic language.
Students' identities and funds of knowledge are the foundation for learning, not a distraction from it. Learn to know and value who your students are and to design instruction that draws on what they bring.
Participants leave withpractical moves to surface and build on students' assets.
Culture and cognition are connected. Explore brain-based, culturally responsive practice that builds the trust and challenge students need to do hard intellectual work, especially students the system has underserved.
Participants leave withculturally responsive moves tied to specific instructional moments.
Students think harder when it is safe to be wrong. Build an affirming environment and a sense of belonging that make rigorous, risk-taking work possible for every student.
Participants leave withstructures that build belonging and productive risk-taking.
MTSS is not only academic. Its domains include belonging and social, emotional, and behavioral development. Learn to build the universal SEL and behavioral supports that keep students regulated, connected, and ready to learn.
Participants leave witha set of Tier 1 SEL and behavioral practices for your classroom.
Families are the most underused learning partner in the system. Build two-way, asset-based partnerships with caregivers that actually move student outcomes, not one-way newsletters.
Participants leave witha family-partnership plan with concrete two-way touchpoints.
Co-teaching and teacher teams succeed or fail on the adult relationship. Set roles, communication, and shared goals so collaboration actually serves students.
Participants leave witha working agreement and shared plan for a co-teaching or team partnership.
The strongest professional learning is collaborative and ongoing. Run inquiry cycles where teacher teams take on a real problem of practice, test approaches, and share what works.
Participants leave witha structured inquiry-cycle protocol and a problem of practice to launch.
Multilingual families are partners, not barriers to translate around. Drawing on Colorín Colorado's family practice, build engagement that honors home language and connects multilingual caregivers to their children's learning.
Participants leave witha multilingual family-engagement plan that leverages home language as an asset.
Service Line 03
Responsible AI for teachers, students, and leaders, organized into three series. AI is leverage for strong practice, never a substitute for thinking.
We take a clear stance on AI. Technology enhances learning only when users direct it, question it, verify it, and protect their own thinking in the process. That stance runs through the Learning Arc itself. These three series make it practical, whether you are integrating AI into your own teaching, designing it into student learning, or leading it across a building.
Delivery: on-site or virtual.
Step back from tools and ground in a vision of yourself as the change agent. Locate AI as an enabling force that protects the human work, relationships, belonging, and flourishing, and decide deliberately where AI does and does not belong.
Participants leave withA personal AI-as-Leverage vision statement, and a clear read on where AI belongs in their practice and where it does not.
The concrete win. Turn a real, upcoming lesson into an AI-augmented, differentiated plan using a repeatable prompting protocol, then convert the time saved into a named reinvestment toward the students who most need you.
Participants leave withOne AI-augmented, differentiated lesson ready to teach, and a protected plan for reinvesting reclaimed time.
The guardrails that keep the vision honest. Build the discernment to judge AI outputs for accuracy, bias, equity, and privacy, and the diligence to own what you do with them, keeping human judgment in the loop where decisions about children live.
Participants leave withA classroom AI-integrity agreement they can use Monday, and an accuracy, bias, and equity check for any AI output.
Used well, AI can personalize learning and widen choice. Explore how AI can offer adaptive feedback and multiple paths that foster autonomy, creativity, and differentiation in a student-centered classroom.
Participants leave withStrategies to use AI for choice and personalization without ceding ownership.
See it before you build it. Experience AI-integrated model lessons firsthand and unpack how they support inquiry, creativity, and problem-solving, along with the challenges and ethics that come with them.
Participants leave withA worked model lesson and design strategies for student-centered AI use.
The risk of AI is that it skips the learning. Design AI-integrated tasks that focus on the student's thinking process, not just the finished product, protecting critical thinking, creativity, and genuine engagement.
Participants leave withA task design that uses AI while keeping the cognitive work with students.
Go beyond the essay. Get hands on with AI tools for creative production, from music making and art to video production and comic-book creation, and design authentic assessment products that let students demonstrate learning in media that motivate them.
Participants leave withA menu of creative AI tools and one authentic, AI-supported assessment product built for their unit.
Move from principles to practice. Learn practical strategies to teach digital citizenship and guide students toward fair, responsible, and ethical decision-making whenever they use AI.
Participants leave withClassroom-ready routines for teaching ethical AI use.
Put AI to work on the instructional core. Use it to strengthen instructional coherence, turn classroom walkthroughs into actionable insights, and sharpen the coaching and feedback systems that move teacher practice, with your judgment steering every call.
Participants leave withFrameworks and ready-to-use prompts that turn walkthrough data into coaching moves and coherent instructional priorities.
Make data and operations lighter and smarter. Use AI to enhance how you read instructional and system-level data, build routines that sustain that data use over time, and streamline the operational tasks that pull leaders away from instruction.
Participants leave withA sustainable routine for instructional and system-level data, plus operations-streamlining prompts and templates you can reuse.
Redesign the systems and the message. Use AI to improve family and community communication and to redesign leadership systems, with clear acceptable-use guardrails, so your school is more intentional, responsive, and high-impact by design.
Participants leave withRedesigned leadership systems, communication templates, and acceptable-use guardrails ready to adapt across contexts.
Any AI offering can be delivered as a workshop, embedded in a coaching cycle, or run as an AI-focused professional learning community where a team takes one focus area from grounding to implementation.
Service Line 04
Practical, research-grounded programming that moves families from surviving to thriving, and gives social workers the tools to make that possible.
Families are the most underleveraged learning partner in the system. This service line treats caregivers as co-designers, not respondents, and builds the executive functioning, academic, wellness, technology, and career skills that let them show up for their children. Programming is designed with students in temporary housing in mind and works for the full family community.
Delivery: on-site or virtual.
Audience: school social workers, STH coordinators, and community coordinators. Funding: STH budget, Title I, Title IV, Parent and Family, and Workforce Development. Workshops run as series or standalone sessions; multi-part arcs are noted.
A facilitated listening session that creates space for families to name their own needs, strengths, and aspirations, in community rather than on a form.
Families and children join in creative design activities to generate their own solutions and shape the programming that serves them.
A coaching session for school teams to translate assessment findings into a concrete, funded family engagement roadmap.
Caregivers identify their personal executive functioning profile: where they are strong, where they struggle, and which strategies fit how their brain works.
Caregivers learn to design daily routines around the executive functions they already do well, using strength as a scaffold.
Participants leave with a curated set of high-impact strategies matched to their EF profile, built for the real chaos of family life.
A hands-on workshop that demystifies current math methods and gives caregivers concrete strategies to support math at home without frustration.
Practical routines and language caregivers can use to create productive homework time, even in a shelter, even without a quiet table.
Teaches the difference between scaffolding and taking over, with language to build student independence while staying meaningfully involved.
Building a culture of literacy that lives outside the classroom. Practical ways to turn everyday moments into reading, talking, and wondering together, at the kitchen table and out in the neighborhood, from street signs and subway maps to grocery lists and bedtime stories. No perfect bookshelf, and no quiet room, required.
Reframes the survival skills families have already developed as evidence of resilience, and builds the belief that growth is still possible from here.
Accessible mindfulness practices adapted for the real conditions of shelter life, designed to reduce reactive parenting and increase presence.
Science-backed tools for managing stress responses in the moment, so caregivers stay connected to their children even when the system pushes back.
A deeper look at generational patterns and how social-emotional skills become the foundation for a different future for the whole family.
Hands-on navigation of the tools schools already use, so families can stay connected to assignments, communication, and progress without needing a translator.
What AI already is in your child's classroom, phone, and future job market, and what families need to know to guide them with confidence.
A hands-on session where families use AI for real tasks: drafting a letter to a landlord, preparing for a school meeting, researching benefits.
How to use AI to streamline case notes, plan family interventions, draft referral letters, and reclaim time for the work that requires a human.
An introduction to skills-based hiring: what it is, why it is reshaping the labor market, and why it favors people who do not fit the traditional credential mold.
Participants identify and articulate the competencies built through caregiving, community, and survival, and translate them into language employers recognize.
A working session where participants build or rebuild a resume around competencies, not just job titles, with direct facilitator coaching.
Practical strategies for addressing gaps, name bias, and other systemic barriers that disproportionately screen out applicants in temporary housing.
Uses skills-adjacency mapping to help participants identify roles and sectors where their existing competencies transfer, opening doors they did not know existed.