Thoughtful Schools

A Route to Success

Thoughtful Education

Administrators

February 14, 2007

Planning for Success

Destination

Proficient & Prepared

for SUCCESS

Planning a Trip Tick

2014

Planning for Success

Making Students as

Important as Standards

Planning a Trip Tick

2014

Destination: Thoughtful Schools

• High levels of learning for ALL children.

• Quality instruction in EVERY classroom.

• Skillful leadership THROUGHOUT the school and district.

Archimedes, one of the most influential mathematicians of all time, believed that if he had a lever long enough, he could lift

the world with one finger.

Implementation Model• Teacher leaders

• Instructional Leadership Teams

• Learning Clubs

• Site Visitations

• Technical Assistance

• Portfolios

• Pyramid Design

• Partnership

Principal and

Teacher Leaders

Establishes Site Based Instructional Leadership Team

Form Two Learning Clubs

Conduct 2 Day Professional Development for 30 Teachers

Set Up Additional Learning Clubs For Ongoing Coaching and Technical Assistance

Implementation Pyramid

Model

Accountability Gains From 2004-2006

4.64.1

5.2

0.9

3.3

4.7

6.7

5.3

3.5

2.8

7.2

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

8.0

KY State Average GRREC TC Districts

• In the past two years 9 of the 10 districts participating in the Thoughtful Classroom initiative exceeded the state accountability index of 2.8.

• The average accountability index of the nine school districts that exceeded the state’s index was 5.0,

almost twice the growth of the state average of 2.8.

• 3 of the 10 districts more than doubled the state accountability index, 7.2, 6.7, 5.6.

• GRREC districts not participating in the Thoughtful Classroom initiative gained an average slightly

more than the state’s 2.8, but significantly less than the participating districts in the Thoughtful Classroom initiative.

• The state’s number one and number three districts with the greatest gains in 2005 were participants in the Thoughtful Classroom initiative. In 2006 the eleventh and twelfth districts with the greatest gains in the state were also Thoughtful Classroom participants.

Sharpe Elementary

Sharpe Elementary School

What can we learn from the lens of Principal Angie Kerrick?

Conscious

Self-Deceit

WHAT IF…….

What if I had a Thoughtful School…..

Imagine that you are administrator in a thoughtful school that you designed if you had complete freedom and control. Think through, in your mind, what that school would be like. Ask yourself these questions:

1. What would teachers be doing on a regular day?2. What would students be doing on a typical day?3. What structures or actions on my part and the school’s part make learning happen

for both adults and students in the building?4. How would the instructional activities—lessons, assessments, conversations—be

organized?5. How would the decisions about students’ learning and performance expectations

made?6. How would students interact with one another inside the classroom?7. How would students interact with the adults in the school?8. What would be important in the building and how would I know it is important?9. What support structures and feedback would I provide to the students and the

teachers for continuous learning?10. How would stakeholders know thinking was important?

Where are you?

• High levels of learning for all students.

• Quality instruction in every classroom.

• Skillful leadership throughout the district/school.

Where are you?

Where do you want to be?

I. Research Based Strategies

II. Hidden Skills of Academic Literacy

III. Diversity that Works

IV.Instructional Learning Teams

V. Curriculum/Unit Design

What is the route you plan to take?

School Improvement

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

Mohandas Ghandi

Introducing A New Portfolio for Learning Clubs

InferencePrinciples of Success• Curiosity: Curiosity arises when we have only partial knowledge of a

topic or subject that interests us. The more curious students are the more they will seek to learn.

• Orderliness: The mind naturally seeks patterns, logic, and order. When students encounter confusion or disorder, they work to “make sense” of it.

• Reciprocity: The reciprocal relationship between hypotheses and data encourages forward progress of in investigation. When students gather information, they make hypotheses, they then gather new data to support or refute their hypotheses. The new data leads them to develop refined hypotheses that can only be verified through collecting more data.

• Proof: No one likes to be wrong. When students realize that well supported arguments cannot be considered “wrong” they work to gather evidence to substantiate all of their claims.

Planning

Step 1: Purpose and Strategy

Scenario

A battered book….but

great story.

Step 2: Develop a clear idea of what you want students to discover.What do I want students to uncover?

• All stories share common elements, and by changing the elements of the story we can create new stories.

• There are as many stories that can be told as there are people with imaginations.

Step 3: Determine Clues and Information Source

Step 4: Decide how students will demonstrate what they have learned?

Write a story about an ordinary event, but make it extraordinary.

Make it a story worth reading by including the criteria we discussed in class. Use Microsoft Word to publish your story and illustrate it with watercolor. You may work in a group of no more than four.

Reading/Writing Writer’s Club

Synthesis Realistic Fiction

Step 5: Reflect upon the Process

What made “The Tree of Birds

a Good Story?”

What makes for a good story?

Mystery

Student Phases

Marcus found a book that looked interesting to him in the school library, but someone had not taken very good care of the book. Words were marked out with a marker, pages were torn out, and the only thing left of the book were some pictures.

Help Marcus tell the story of “The Tree of Birds.”

Someone Somewhere

Wanted BUT

So Then

Next Finally

Phase I: Identify the Problem, Strategy, and Data Sources

Mystery StrategyPhase II: Examine the Clues and NOTE any patterns or relationships.

• Identify what you know.

• Form a hunch.

• Formulate a tentative hypothesis.

Phase III: Find EVIDENCE to support or refute your hypothesis. REFINE your hypothesis if needed.

• Phase IV: Explain your reasoning using evidence to support your hypothesis.What I think will happen? Support

What I think will happen? Support What did happen?

Mystery Strategy

Phase V: Reflect

• What made “The Tree of Birds a Good Story?”

• If you were to plan a story what would you want to remember about the writer’s techniques to make your story worth reading over and over again?

• What did you learn about how good readers use clues when reading to make predictions and test hypotheses?