Applied Coaching for Projects 2025 Year in Review and What’s Ahead
- Alicia Peletz
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
2025: A Year of Refinement, Reach, and Real Impact
As we move into a new year, I always find it important to pause and not just to celebrate what worked, but to reflect honestly on what we learned, what shifted, and where we are intentionally headed next.
What came through strongly was that 2025 was not a year of reinvention for Applied Coaching for Projects. That was 2024, with our rebrand that clarified who we are at ACP, what we stand for, and how it shows up in the work. 2025 was a year of refinement, listening closely to educators and leaders to strengthen our offerings and aligning our systems to be scalable to support districts and larger systems.
Looking Back on 2025: What We Learned and Built
This past year reinforced something we’ve long believed at ACP: meaningful change doesn’t come from one-off initiatives or rigid frameworks. It comes from sustained support, thoughtful planning, and small, intentional moves that build trust and capacity over time.
Below are the key themes that shaped our work in 2025, and our theme of the year refinement
Deepening Project Based Learning Support
Rather than pushing more Project Based Learning, our work focused on better PBL, meaning projects grounded in standards that can still work within time constraints and designed with sustainability in mind.
Through workshops, coaching cycles, and the continued growth of our Project Builder platform, we supported educators in moving from ideas to implementation with confidence.
Educators consistently told us they didn’t need more inspiration or projects; they were already bought in. But what they needed was clarity, structure, and the time to create something meaningful for their students. That feedback shaped everything we built and facilitated this year.
The Growth of the Project Builder Platform
The Project Builder continued to evolve as a planning tool that supports, not replaces, teacher expertise.
In 2025, we leaned even further into helping educators:
Plan projects that unfold over time, not just at the end of a unit
Embed reflection, feedback, and assessment throughout the learning cycle
Customize projects to their students, content, and community
One of the most significant shifts this year was expanding access to the Project Builder beyond professional development experiences. Many educators we work with have already participated in PBL workshops. They didn’t necessarily need more training, but they did want support in getting started.
Teachers shared that they were looking for a way to:
Jumpstart new project ideas
Reduce the cognitive load of planning from scratch
Have a thought partner when time was limited
In response, we introduced a subscription-based access model for the Project Builder, enabling educators to use the platform as an ongoing planning companion rather than a one-time PD tool. The goal wasn’t to replace professional learning; it was to remove the weight of doing it all alone when you aren’t in a workshop.
By opening Project Builder through subscriptions, we supported sustained project planning, iteration, and reflection throughout the year, meeting educators where they were and honoring the expertise they already bring to the work.
Seeing districts return to the Project Builder again and again, and hearing how it supported real classroom shifts, was one of the most affirming parts of the year.
Coaching That Meets Today’s Educational Reality
Coaching in schools has changed. Burnout, turnover, and competing initiatives are real, and we saw firsthand that traditional, compliance-driven coaching models often fall short.
In response, our work increasingly centered on small, frequent, relationship-based coaching touchpoints to provide support that is responsive, practical, and human. This approach shaped our facilitation, our consulting work, and the writing we’ve been doing behind the scenes.
Expanding ACP’s Professional Learning Ecosystem
In 2025, we continued expanding our self-paced and facilitation-ready professional learning resources so schools could sustain the work beyond a single workshop.
Our focus remained the same: make high-quality professional learning usable, adaptable, and grounded in real practice.
New Online Courses Launched in 2025
This year, we launched two new online learning experiences:
PBL Reimagined, supporting educators in planning high-quality projects with clarity, alignment, and efficiency
Grow Your Own Leaders, a facilitator-ready experience designed to help schools build leadership capacity from within
Alongside these courses, we created a growing collection of practical tools, including the PBL Starter Pack, to help educators move from ideas to action without adding unnecessary complexity, with 10 infographics to use.
Building Coherence Through System and Teacher Support Roadmaps
An important shift in 2025 emerged as we began winning our first formal RFPs and engaging more deeply in district-level work.
Through that process, we saw clearly that districts weren’t just looking for strong professional learning experiences; they were looking for a coherent plan that showed how learning, coaching, and leadership development connect over time.
ACP’s System and Teacher Support Roadmaps
In response, we formalized two complementary roadmaps that now anchor our district offerings:
System Support Roadmap – helping district and school leaders strengthen enabling conditions, align instructional priorities, build leadership capacity, and plan for sustainable implementation
Teacher Support Roadmap – outlining how professional learning progresses from foundational workshops to ongoing coaching, sustained implementation, and measuring impact
These roadmaps reflect how meaningful instructional change actually happens: through intentional sequencing, shared understanding, and consistent support, not isolated events.
Building on this work, we also introduced district partnership offerings designed to meet systems where they are and support the right next steps. To see more, check out our new 2026 service catalog!
Expanding Our Reach and Growing the ACP Team
2025 also marked meaningful growth beyond our offerings.
We were proud to win our first RFPs, expand our reach into the Midwest, and begin supporting new regions and school systems across the country.
We also welcomed Sharyl Lynn Fujii and Dr. Amber Graeber to the Applied Coaching for Projects team. Their experience and perspective have strengthened our capacity in these areas and deepened the support we provide to schools and districts.
What’s Ahead for Applied Coaching for Projects in 2026
Looking forward, our focus is not on doing more, but on doing what matters most, more intentionally, which is why our 2026 word for the year is reach. We are focusing on expanding access to high-quality, learner-centered professional learning, while staying grounded in coherence and care.
At ACP, we take pride in meeting educators where they are and providing support when they need it.
A Focused Season of Work: A Free eBook on Actionable Assessment
Over the past couple of months, we’ve been a little quieter than usual in our outward communication, and that’s because we’ve been working on something important that we’re excited to share for free.
As part of our rebrand, Actionable Assessment became a clearly defined pillar of our work. Over time, we’ve written a number of blogs exploring this idea, what it looks like in practice, how it shows up in classrooms, and how assessment can be used as a tool for learning rather than simply a measure of it.
Rather than letting those ideas live only as individual posts, we realized there was a need to bring them together in a coherent, intentional way. The result is an upcoming free eBook on Actionable Assessment that preserves this body of work while helping clearly define what we mean by actionable assessment at ACP.
This eBook is designed to support:
Individual educators reflecting on their assessment practices
PLCs and teams engaging in meaningful conversations about feedback, grading, and instructional decision-making
Leaders looking for a shared language around assessment that supports learning and growth
Our goal was to create a resource that invites deep thinking and honest conversation, not quick fixes, and one that educators can return to over time as their understanding of assessment continues to evolve.
We’re looking forward to sharing this work soon and seeing how it supports reflection and dialogue across classrooms, teams, and schools. It should be out within a few months!
Want the free Actionable Assessment eBook when it’s released? Sign Up! We’re putting the finishing touches on a resource that brings together our Actionable Assessment thinking in one coherent place. Sign up to have it delivered directly to your inbox when it’s ready. |
A New Focus Area: Project-Based Learning and Literacy
One of the most significant new areas of focus this year is the intersection of project based learning and literacy. Literacy is a major focus everywhere, and we kept hearing the same questions over and over. So we decided that this needs its own dedicated workshop, rather than just a quick response to a hand raised.
This work responds directly to questions we’ve been hearing from schools:
How does PBL align with the Science of Reading?
How do we strengthen literacy instruction without sacrificing authentic, student-centered learning?
What does rigorous, content-rich literacy look like in a project-based classroom?
Our PBLDriven Literacy offering is designed to show how literacy development and high-quality PBL can work together intentionally, without forcing educators to choose between priorities. We are so excited for this to come to life.
New Blogs and Thought Leadership Coming Soon
To support this growing focus on literacy and to extend professional learning beyond workshops, we have an exciting lineup of blogs coming soon.
Cheryl Dobbertin will share several blogs focused on literacy and PBL. So if you enjoy those blogs, you will definitely want to take our PBL-Driven Literacy workshop.
Tara Harvey will continue sharing her popular “top lists,” offering practical insights for educators and leaders. To be honest, those were our most viewed blogs this year, so we wanted to share more of her insights on her favorite books.
Additional ACP contributors will continue adding to the conversation, reflecting the depth of perspectives across our team.
Expanding the Professional Learning Library in the Project Builder
We are also continuing to build out the Professional Learning Library within the Project Builder.
This library will include short, self-paced learning supports designed to provide just-in-time guidance connected directly to project planning and implementation. These resources will be included with a Project Builder subscription and available at no additional cost.
Moving Forward With Clarity and Purpose
Looking ahead to 2026, our System and Teacher Support Roadmaps will anchor how we partner with schools and districts to ensure that all of our professional learning, coaching, leadership development, and planning tools work together as a coherent, sustainable system designed for lasting impact.
Moving Forward Together
As we step into the year ahead, I’m deeply grateful to the educators who trust us with their work, the leaders who invite us into their schools, and the community that continues to grow around ACP.
Our commitment remains steady: to support meaningful, learner-centered work that is thoughtful, realistic, and rooted in care for both students and educators.
We’re proud of what 2025 brought and excited for what’s ahead. I can't wait to share an update at the start of 2027 on how our year "Reach" went in 2026!
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