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What's
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Pyramid of Support and RtI at a
Middle Class Suburban Elementary School |
This article contains excerpts from the upcoming release of Failure Is Not an Option® 6 Principles for Making Student Success the ONLY Option, by Alan M. Blankstein.
To
pre-order a copy visit the HOPE store online.
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Coyote Ridge Elementary is a suburban school north of Denver, Colorado. For the past six years, staff has been integrally involved in the implementation of successful RTI. What is it that has caused the high level of achievement for all students? If asked, staff would clearly articulate the following:
- The common mission and vision for the school is "all students
can and will learn". There are no excuses.
- All staff is responsible for every student’s success, both
academically and behaviorally.
- There is a clear, articulated pyramid of support for students
needing additional assistance or for those already exceeding
the standards. (This is the "what strategies should we use to
support our learners".)
- There is a comprehensive plan for the implementation of
strategies, tracking of data, and design for whole staff discussion
and involvement in supporting students through Vertical Teams.
(This is the "how do we ensure that we are meeting the specific
needs of individual students based on data".)
- The focus is on students’ needs, not on curriculum, although best
practices and strategies for high quality instruction are integrated
into the discussion.
- Staff unfailingly revisits the pyramid and process for implementation
two times per year in order to refine and improve strategies and
teamwork. This is focused on data and results of student
achievement, as well as on the keys to effective teaming.
Read entire article here.
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| Alan M. Blankstein is Founder and President of the HOPE Foundation, a not-for-profit organization whose Honorary Chair is Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The HOPE Foundation is dedicated to supporting educational leaders over time in creating school cultures where failure is not an option for any student. HOPE has a decade-long track record of sustaining student success in districts throughout North America. |
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| In This Issue |
If you would be interested in submitting an article for review, please contact us.
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Making the Most of Professional Learning Communities |
by Jay McTighe
This article is the first of a three part series. |
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" Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. "
— Vince Lombardi |
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A growing number of educators are involved in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) within their schools. Once a PLC structure is established and communities are formed, a set of substantive questions must be addressed: What is the role of PLCs within a school? How do we insure that a PLC achieves its desired results? What should teachers be doing when they meet in learning teams? In other words, how do we make the most of Professional Learning Communities?
In our recent book, Schooling by Design (ASCD, 2007), Wiggins and McTighe propose various professional roles for teachers when they are not instructing students. In this article, and the forthcoming newsletter articles, I will discuss three of these roles as defining the essential work of members of a Professional Learning Community
- Serving as a "Critical Friend,"
- Looking at Student Work in Teams
- Continuous Learner
PLC Member Role #1 – Serving as a "Critical Friend"
Once a month, members of a cross-grade level PLC team meet to exchange unit plans for "critical friend" feedback. Allison and her fourth grade partner, Tom, give copies of their upcoming interdisciplinary unit on the "rain forest" to 5th grade teachers, Everett and Elizabeth, in exchange for their E/LA "poetry" unit. Following reading and paired discussions of the two units they received, each grade level team presents feedback and suggestions to the other.
During the meeting, Elizabeth and Everett suggest several essential questions for the rain forest unit ("How does where you live influence how you live?" and "How do living and non-living things of an eco-system interact?") that can be productively revisited in fifth grade. As a group, the four teachers brainstorm ideas for a performance task that assesses several of the unit’s interdisciplinary learning targets. Allison and Tom commend the engaging learning activities of the poetry unit, but point out that the proposed assessment evidence does not align completely with the unit goals. Elizabeth and Everett discuss ways to sharpen the assessments. Tom suggests a wonderful Internet site on which elementary students can read poems written by students across the globe and publish their own poems. Everett and Elizabeth are thrilled to learn about this excellent new resource for their unit.
Most teachers plan lessons and units of study, based on an established curriculum framework. However, teacher-developed plans are typically created in isolation and (with the exception of untenured beginners) are rarely reviewed by administrators or colleagues. Moreover, teachers can sometimes get too close to their work and have a difficult time seeing any weaknesses. As an antidote to this prevalent aspect of our profession, I propose that all teachers should be actively involved in playing the role of a "critical friend" for their colleagues to review unit plans, lessons and assessments and provide helpful feedback.
For the rest of the first segment of this article, click here.
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Jay McTighe brings a wealth of experience developed during a rich and varied career in education. He served as Director of the Maryland Assessment Consortium, a state collaboration of school districts working together to develop and share formative performance assessments. Prior to this position, Jay was involved with school improvement projects at The Maryland State Department of Education.
To see some of McTighe's techniques in our Failure Is Not an Option® DVD series, Effective Assessment for Effective Learning, click here.
©Wiggins, Grant and McTighe, Jay (2007) Schooling by Design.
This article has been published by Ontario ASCD and The Learning Principal (NSDC).
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| Upcoming Failure Is Not an Option® Institute |
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Five years after the award-winning gold standard of sustaining high-performing school communities was published, Failure Is Not an Option® has been read by some 200,000 educators across five continents. Many have used the book as their guide to school reform, and their successes are documented in the second edition. For the first time, leaders from five of these districts will come together with participants in the book—Michael Fullan, Dean Fink, and author Alan M. Blankstein. Practitioners will share how they have closed gaps within and between schools by developing leadership at all levels as well as shifting school cultures so that success becomes the only option.
You will learn how to:
- Close achievement gaps
- Assess for success
- Develop courageous leadership capacity and ownership at all levels
- Use a common system to bring cohesion and high-performance to the entire district
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"In order to achieve excellence for all students, it is no longer an option for teachers to work in isolation; however, putting teachers together to collaborate is only the first step. To achieve the lift we are getting in Wichita, teachers have to collaborate about the right things. The HOPE Foundation has helped us to focus our work by providing our teams with the tools and processes necessary to bring our professional learning community to life."
Greg Rasmussen
Assistant Superintendent,
Wichita Public Schools |
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- In 2006-07, Wichita participated in their first cohort of a Courageous Leadership Academy (CLA) in 44 of their 88 schools, and continued their training in the rest of the district in 2007-08. In 2006-07, Wichita met 36 of 42 AYP subgroup targets, narrowed the achievement gap between Caucasian and African-American students, and exceeded the state’s graduation target.
- Payne Elementary was the lowest performing school in reading and math in 2007. After deploying the CLA framework, teachers were able to work together to make data driven decisions in both subjects and collaborate on best practices for real results. Payne saw a gain of 10.8 points in reading and 14.3 point gain in math for the first year. Preliminary data for year two shows an 8.5 point gain in reading and a 17.6 point gain in math.
- The district met AYP for all students in reading and math, along with goals in participation, attendance, and graduation. In addition, in 2007 15 schools in the district achieved AYP that had not in 2006; 12 of those schools had participated in the HOPE Foundation’s Courageous Leadership Academy. They are no longer the lowest performing school in the district, and are on the path for success for all of their students.
Wichita is among the districts that are successfully closing gaps and sustaining success with Failure Is Not an Option®– See more on Carefree, AZ for more information on connecting with these leaders. |
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Changing Demographics and Their Implications for K-12 Teachers |
by Maggie Pagan |
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" Good schools, like good societies and good families, celebrate and cherish diversity. "
— C. S. Lewis |
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With the rising numbers of immigrants and the demands of increasing our nation’s global economy, educators can’t ignore the educational needs of the linguistically and culturally diverse student population in our K-12 classrooms. The nation’s demographics are changing, and creating instructional environments—as well as implementing instructional strategies to support learning outcomes—to meet these students’ needs has become essential for classroom teachers.
Although many strategies for supporting native English speakers are applicable to this population, there are significant differences in the way that successful academic gains for linguistically and culturally diverse students should be designed and implemented. We have a diverse group of learners in terms of their educational backgrounds, native languages, socioeconomic status, etc.—yet they’re all held to the same accountability standards.
Read the entire article here. |
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Maggie Pagan is a National PD/ELL Specialist providing PD presentations and training nationwide. She has had extensive experience in the field of Second Language Acquisition; Literacy Development with ELLs and Multicultural Education. Her experiences include: PD Manager, National PD Consultant, ELL Specialist, Full time University Faculty and K-12 Classroom teacher. |
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Where There
Is HOPE, Failure Is Not an Option®
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Copyright © 2009 by The
HOPE Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. |
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