Similar to meeting the varying needs of students in the classroom, it is also difficult to meet the staff development needs of teachers within a school building or throughout a district. Why not utilize the individual strengths of staff while providing local professional development? Read More
Results from the 2018 Phi Delta Kappa Poll
As teachers work to meet higher demand in the classroom and schools/districts struggle to meet increasing demands from the public, the PDK annual poll provides interesting perspectives. Read More
Proficiency Scales and the CLI Model
Many of our school districts have begun work with proficiency scales, a tool introduced by Robert Marzano and Marzano Research to determine levels of student learning. One benefit of including proficiency scales in your curriculum, instruction, and assessment work is that both the teacher and student can use them. Let’s take a closer look at what proficiency scales are, their purposes, and how they work within the CLI Model.Read More
The Why of CLI and How to Find Yours
The WHY of any organization isn’t about making a profit. Instead, it is the purpose, cause, or overall belief of the group. In all types of work, change must take place to keep up. Providing a strong reason for making a change, and communicating it clearly with staff, will ease much of the pushback from those the change will effect. Providing your “why” will hopefully inspire staff to follow because they will have a purpose.Read More
Does Your District Have All the Pieces in Place to Improve and Maintain Teaching and Learning?
Improvements in teaching and learning can be rather challenging to come by and to maintain over time, and in order to make systemic changes within your district, you need to have all staff on board and prepared to do their part. Our graphic illustrates the relationships between the various working groups throughout the process.Read More
Fidelity to the New Curriculum
In scientific research, certain conditions need to be followed carefully in order to have reliable results. Procedures are put in place to ensure variables are isolated because the influence of extraneous variables can greatly affect the outcome of an experiment in a favorable or negative way. Implementing a new curriculum is similar to conducting a scientific investigation in that it is important to follow a set procedure. Conditions need to be controlled, …Read More
Leaders Hungry for Details of Systemic Change
In this month’s E-hint, we present a list of questions to initiate and open a dialogue regarding district-wide academic processes among stakeholders within a district. These challenging questions could help an administrative team affirm or evaluate their current curriculum structures and processes. The questions are posed from a first-person perspective from within a district.Read More
Changes in Professional Development Due to ESSA Requirements and Title Funding
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) recently completed a year of full implementation. While the law is authorized to continue programs from the Elementary and Secondary Schools Act until 2020, there is speculation that funding amounts could change or even be eliminated due to priorities in the annual budget. Even though educators must play the waiting game in order to plan, it is still important to know the features of …Read More
Build-A-House: An Educational Analogy
The processes of curriculum, instruction, and assessment schools should use to assure student learning might be compared to the steps of building a house. Let’s look at those steps and compare them to best practices in education… from what is established at the district-level, through all the stages of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, to what is mandated of schools by the state or other accrediting agencies.Read More
Library Standards to Support Your Curriculum
As we begin the month of April, the annual month celebrating contributions of school libraries and staff, Curriculum Leadership Institute would be remiss if we didn’t call attention to the American Association of School Library’s (AASL’s) newly released standards. After reading this E-Hint summary, you may appreciate visiting AASL’s website designed specifically to assist with the understanding and implementation of these standards:Read More