Travis’s approach to professional learning is collaborative, results-driven, and human-centered.  Drawing from the work of organizations like the National Equity Project and Learning Forward, as well as current research on coaching, culturally responsive education, collaboration, and continuous improvement, Travis believes in the need for strong theoretical foundations from which to enact practice. 

Travis began his teaching career as a humanities teacher at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, WA.  In his third year of teaching, he was chosen as one of five teachers to develop and launch an extended-day school model for a program within a traditional high school.  This foundational experience taught him of the importance of distributed leadership, collaboration, communication, community partnerships, and innovation in leading and scaling systems-level change. 

Moving into instructional coach work after ten years in the classroom, Travis’s work explicitly turned to increasing teacher capacity. Through the development of strong relationships with educators and administrators, and his deep knowledge of collaborative processes, Travis led the adoption and implementation of a new PLC model, created and led the instructional leadership team, developed lab classrooms for pre-service and practicing teachers, and co-led the Teacher Leadership Academy for Tacoma Public Schools.  These experiences reinforced his belief in developing a shared purpose among all stakeholders and the criticality of listening deeply to foster trust and understand the varied needs of those stakeholders.