Best Practices

1. Best Practices

2. Overview of Best Practices Literacy Best Practice Documents: • Were developed by curriculum staff and area specialists, with coaches’ and teachers’ input. • Address major components of the literacy program. • Writing Workshop • Reading Workshop • ECE • Guided Reading • Coaching • List Big Ideas on the left for each content area, stated in terms of teacher behaviors. • Describe practices for Big Ideas at three levels of implementation with enough specificity to inform teachers’ implementation.

3. Overview of Best Practices (continued) Literacy Best Practice Documents: • Articulate vision of what “highly effective” instruction looks like. • Inform the content for professional development and coaching. • Are “works in progress” and will be revised as we learn more and as we get feedback from teachers and schools. • Available online at http://curriculum.dpsk12.org/cd_curric_docs_best_practices.htm.

4. Dos and Don’ts of Best Practices DO: • Recognize that where teachers are in their implementation depends on the support and professional development they receive. • Encourage teachers to use best practices for their own self-assessment and honor their reflections. • Use best practices to inform classroom observations • Provide coaching and other learning community activities to build teacher understandings of best practices.

5. Don’ts of Best Practices DON’T: • Hold people accountable for what they haven’t had the opportunity to learn. • Expect teachers to be “highly effective” in all categories. • Use best practice documents as a checklist to evaluate teachers. • Overwhelm teachers by presenting all best practice documents in one session!

6. Best Practices: Identifying Focus Areas 2 1 3 4 K 5 ECE Leadership Team/PDC Principal Representatives from grades, specials, special education Coach

7. Best Practices: Identifying Focus Areas • Coach meets with grade-level teams. Teachers read through best practice documents (one per meeting) and discuss: • How might you use the best practices documents? • What practices do you feel good about? • What practices might be a focus area for you and/or your team this year? • How would focusing on these practices improve student achievement? (Consider specific student data you hope to impact.)

8. Best Practices: Identifying Focus Areas • After teachers have looked through the Reading Workshop and Writing Workshop Best Practice documents (or ECE Best Practices for ECE teachers), they put in writing: • Focus areas that interest them; • Why (include impact on student achievement); • How they would like to focus on these areas (e.g., staff development classes, co-planning and co-teaching with coach, study groups, visits to each other’s classrooms, book study, examination of lessons through Core Issues).

9. Best Practices: Identifying Focus Areas • The grade-level representative and coach present the grade-level write-up to the Leadership Team/PDC. • The Leadership Team/PDC uses grade-level write-ups to: • Look for schoolwide and grade-level interests, possible study groups, trends, etc.; • Plan for professional development and different types of support to offer; • Differentiate professional development; and • Identify professional and instructional materials to support the professional development. • Note: This part takes time!

10. Best Practices: Reading Workshop • Read through the Best Practices for Reading Workshop. • In school teams, use the graphic organizer to consider: • What kind of support and professional development have your teachers already participated in for different Big Ideas? • What do you feel are your school’s strengths? • What are some focus areas that would be beneficial for your school? Why? • How might you differentiate support for teachers? • What additional support for best practices would you like from area and central personnel? (Hand in Best Practices: Support sheet.)

11. Revisit: Goal for this Session To provide processes and tools to use as you engage your faculties in: • sustained, onsite professional development • in an atmosphere of a learning community • that builds capacity and collegiality, • improves teaching quality, and • focuses on student achievement, • using assessment of and for learning.