Compliant or Engaged Learner?
Student engagement is strongly influenced by what teachers do in their classrooms. How do teachers know if their students are compliant, dutiful learners or truly actively engaged in their learning?
A powerful tool to use for personal reflection as well as with a professional learning community or building staff is ASCD’s Compliant or Engaged Learner Chart. Learner characteristics can be used in many ways to promote collegial discussion to clarify and identify engaged learning in the classroom. Check this invaluable resource out!
McKay Consulting Group’s Strengthening Student Engagement session provides teachers with an interactive learning experience, immersing participants in the “WHY”, “HOW” and “WHAT” of student engagement.
- WHY is student engagement critical to student learning?
- HOW can teachers plan to ensure all learners are highly engaged learners?
- WHAT protocols yield rigorous, student owned engagement?
As teachers, we are constantly looking for strategies, activities and protocols that will engage our students and support student ownership of learning. The realities and pace of day to day teaching can challenge our ability to provide this learning environment on a consistent basis. Let the McKay Consulting Group support your instruction as you engage all learners in your classroom!
When students are engaged, they’re motivated to learn!
Is School Leadership a Position, or is it a Disposition?
The School Year: A Cycle of Continuous Improvement
September/October: Getting to know one another as learners
November/December: We are a learning community
January/February: Immersed in learning
March/April: Accumulating evidence of learning
May/June: Celebrating learning
July/August: Reflecting on learning
… And so the rhythm of the school year goes. Providing educators with a natural timeframe for a continuous improvement cycle, multiple opportunities to hone our craft.
At this time of year, as we celebrate learning, we think first about ways to replicate success. We reflect by looking “into the mirror.” What was it about my planning, classroom environment and instructional practices that contributed to success? Why did that unit of study produce such rigorous evidence of learning? How did Jason develop such perseverance? What strategies had the greatest impact?
As we contemplate challenges, we can learn so much by looking “out the window.”
What can we learn from others that might enhance our professional practices? Although teachers often share plans and materials, there is no substitute for seeing those plans in action. In schools, too often the only person who has this opportunity is the “evaluator,” a person with a title, a “positional” leader.
But is leadership really a position, or is it a disposition? If we agree that it is a disposition, what are we doing in schools to enhance this disposition, to empower educators to be leaders of their own learning? Is sharing in grade levels, teams and department meetings sufficient? Can providing opportunities for professionals to watch students respond to lesson plans and instructional materials enhance the continuous improvement cycle?
Peer Learning Walks break traditional barriers by connecting colleagues through professional conversations that cross levels and content areas, opening doors to new ways of thinking about teaching and learning. Learn about how a supportive protocol can empower teachers to continue to enhance their professional practices again next year.
Leading with Moral Courage
“You don’t have to be bad to get better.” Adopting this mindset requires putting the needs of students ahead of the needs of adults. More importantly, it requires a good dose of moral courage by school leaders as well as the professional staff they supervise. How is moral courage demonstrated? Look for educators who are energized by opportunities to learn, are constantly asking questions, willingly take on new challenges, seek out feedback from colleagues, and always put students first. Moral courage is what empowers educators to move from knowing to doing. It enables them to apply their understandings about teaching and learning to make the changes needed to improve the quality of teaching. Inspire others by sharing your examples of moral courage in action with us!
Tapping into Your Most Valuable Resource – the Teachers
Schools today are populated with teacher talent. Professional conversations among teachers provide a means to tap this valuable resource, yielding limitless opportunities for learning and growth. We know from our own experiences that conversations between educators can take many paths and detours along the road.
Think of a conversation you’ve had with a colleague that went well; it may have turned up some new ideas, developed an alternative way to approach a problem or identified additional resources to support teaching and learning. These are the conversations we strive for, those that impact teaching by adding to a teacher’s toolkit and simultaneously building trust and confidence in the process itself. Peer Learning Walks break existing barriers among teachers in schools, opening doors to new ideas and perspectives about best practice.
To improve the quality of teaching, adults in schools need ways to work and learn together that build on and challenge their current practice with a focus on student learning. Providing teachers with a structured protocol and the opportunity to learn from each other through brief classroom visits (Peer Learning Walks), is one of the most effective (and least expensive) ways to tap into our most valuable resource – the teachers.
Shifting Teacher Evaluation from Gotcha to Growth Begins with Reliable Data
Teacher evaluations provide rich data that can be used to drive professional learning and empower teachers provided that the data is valid and reliable. How can a system improve the reliability of their teacher evaluation data and make the shift from gotcha to growth?
Transparency is a good place to start. This means that all stakeholders (leaders and teachers) have a common understanding of the criteria and standards on which the evaluations are based. In addition, all evaluators must be trained in collecting and aligning evidence to the standards, and have multiple opportunities to practice this skill. Most importantly, evaluators must come together periodically to collect, analyze and calibrate authentic data, a process we call Calibration Walks.
Calibration Walks give evaluators the chance to collect and analyze authentic data in small peer groups, improving inter-rater reliability. A key goal of this process is using reliable data to engage teachers in analyzing and reflecting on their practice, in the same way students reflect on their learning. Empower and motivate your teachers by providing them with reliable data!
To learn more, inquire about our new program, Calibration Walks: Improve Inter-rater Reliability
Professional Learning Maximized in Summer
The goal of professional development is to either build capacity or change existing practice. Deciding what, when, and why matter. These are decisions McKay Consulting Group can help guide so that you maximize time, resources and impact!
What do we know about effective professional development? We know that professional development should be driven by results data: where are our gaps? We know that we need to involve participants in a cycle of learning, application and reflection, so sequencing matters. We also know that to be truly effective, professional development should be followed by feedback that is specific, timely and relevant.
When professional learning occurs in the summer, teachers and administrators have time to absorb new ideas, energy to deeply discuss them with colleagues, and motivation to integrate new learning into thoughtful planning. Starting a session in the summer and then embedding additional time throughout the year allows for the cycle of professional learning that will change practice and increase learning!
Our Empowering Every Learner series and Engaging Students in Learning session give teachers a head start in writing learning targets, planning aligned assessments and selecting powerful protocols to engage all learners in the classroom. Our Leadership Series provides opportunities for leaders to engage in authentic practice of the skills and understandings essential for improving the quality of teaching. These sessions have changed practice in countless districts across the country.