Today was an extraordinary opportunity for the NAMS teachers to connect with their high school colleagues. This year the district has prioritized vertical alignment k-12, and today was an impressive step forward.
High school and Middle school facilitators joined together to facilitate teacher discussions specific to grade level expectations and best practice strategies. The goal was for all teachers to gain a better understanding of the collaborative work occurring at both schools. Under the facilitators' guidance, teachers identified 2-3 most important skills that all students should know and be able to do at the beginning and end of the year. This discussion served as the springboard for broader and deeper conversations about how North Andover teachers can improve their instructional practice to benefit all students.
Positive feedback has prevailed, and we look forward to more time to not only meet with the high school teachers but our elementary colleagues as well.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
So what do teachers do on all those early release days?
The 2014-2015 school year is the first time the NAMS faculty has experienced an increased frequency of professional development time to this degree. I decided to start a professional development blog, so that the NAMS community could be better informed as to what teachers actually do on early release days. Like most changes in life, the early release became an adjustment for most parents, students, teachers and me. Not only did the PD ( professional development) frequency increase significantly, the NAMS teacher leadership team shifted from Academic coordinators to facilitators. Basically, that means that the teacher leaders' roles changed to primarily facilitating protocols rather than a more comprehensive role of leading a department.
The planning phase of the model change made so much sense; however, the implementation phase has been challenging. Trimester one became a flurry to find ways to effectively plan professional development for teachers that made sense with basic priorities: Improve teaching to improve student learning for all kids. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?
Out of challenge often comes improvement, and I have witnessed significant teacher growth throughout NAMS the first few months of school. So what have we done so far?
For this post I'll share a basic overview and in subsequent posts I'll provide details.
Focus #1: I concluded based on observations that an area of growth for NAMS teachers was to increase the quality of collaboration to a higher level. This means that I'm pushing them to reflect on their collaboration meetings to self- assess the quality of their time together in relation to student learning. I used a researched based rubric tool for them to self- assess against created by Judith Warren Little. In brief, she has identified four levels of collaboration labeling the highest as Joint Work, which is grounded in a shared sense of interdependence and commitment to collective improvement. At NAMS that looks and sounds like teachers using protocols, critical review of work using probing questions and peer observations.
I have asked them to track the percentage of time spent in each category. Please know that there is room for all categories depending on the purpose and priority of the collaboration meeting; however, increased time spent at the joint work level is the ultimate goal. I also included this effort in my own evaluation data for the Superintendent of schools. I believe, as well as many other educators, that if teachers increase the quality of their meetings, instruction will improve.
Focus #2: We have a very large staff for a middle school who are at very different places with their instructional practice. I needed to find a way to give them their autonomy to grow, but at the same time insure that we keep essential learning for students in all classes aligned as much as possible. Therefore, we have implemented an action research approach that embraces collaborative inquiry. The link below gives a general overview. I chose this method because it allows for a differentiated approach for teachers to make decisions based on student need and/or their instructional growth.
http://www.nsrfharmony.org/system/files/protocols/smp_cycle_inquiry_plc_0.pdf
The next post will begin to detail out what we have done so far and where we are going.
The planning phase of the model change made so much sense; however, the implementation phase has been challenging. Trimester one became a flurry to find ways to effectively plan professional development for teachers that made sense with basic priorities: Improve teaching to improve student learning for all kids. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?
Out of challenge often comes improvement, and I have witnessed significant teacher growth throughout NAMS the first few months of school. So what have we done so far?
For this post I'll share a basic overview and in subsequent posts I'll provide details.
Focus #1: I concluded based on observations that an area of growth for NAMS teachers was to increase the quality of collaboration to a higher level. This means that I'm pushing them to reflect on their collaboration meetings to self- assess the quality of their time together in relation to student learning. I used a researched based rubric tool for them to self- assess against created by Judith Warren Little. In brief, she has identified four levels of collaboration labeling the highest as Joint Work, which is grounded in a shared sense of interdependence and commitment to collective improvement. At NAMS that looks and sounds like teachers using protocols, critical review of work using probing questions and peer observations.
I have asked them to track the percentage of time spent in each category. Please know that there is room for all categories depending on the purpose and priority of the collaboration meeting; however, increased time spent at the joint work level is the ultimate goal. I also included this effort in my own evaluation data for the Superintendent of schools. I believe, as well as many other educators, that if teachers increase the quality of their meetings, instruction will improve.
Focus #2: We have a very large staff for a middle school who are at very different places with their instructional practice. I needed to find a way to give them their autonomy to grow, but at the same time insure that we keep essential learning for students in all classes aligned as much as possible. Therefore, we have implemented an action research approach that embraces collaborative inquiry. The link below gives a general overview. I chose this method because it allows for a differentiated approach for teachers to make decisions based on student need and/or their instructional growth.
http://www.nsrfharmony.org/system/files/protocols/smp_cycle_inquiry_plc_0.pdf
The next post will begin to detail out what we have done so far and where we are going.
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