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M8. Most Important Point I Learned About the School Improvement Process

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M8. Most Important Point I Learned About the School Improvement Process

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The most important point I learned about the school improvement plan process is that in order to see true success a goal must be achievable. A school improvement teams needs to set achievable goals so the school will see quick results that build moral. When a school sets a goal that is too high all they will see is failure. For my group school improvement plan my group set goals that were far too high. We expected a high percentage of students with disabilities to achieve grade level in reading and math. Had that been a real school improvement plan our students would have experienced great disappointment when they did not reach their goal. That is why I was very careful in my analysis of data for my Capstone Project so that I would set an achievable goal. When I begin to implement my school improvement plan I believe my benchmarks will give me enough immediate success that it will boost my confidence and the performance of my students.

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Data like teacher survey are crucial to the development of the school improvement plan and should be included as a data source.  These surveys can show you where teachers need professional development, where they feel the weakest and strongest, and how they are doing with planning and collaboration.

This is the most important thing I learned because qualitative data is a crucial factor to consider when deciding what data to include in a school improvement plan. Numbers do not always reveal the root causes of a school's problems. A teacher survey can reveal what teachers think is a school's weakness. From the surveys patterns will emerge and a school improvement team can decide how they are going to achieve success.

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M6. Chapter 5: Math Improvement Overcoming the Middle School Math Dillemma 

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M6. Chapter 5: Math Improvement Overcoming the Middle School Math Dillemma 

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Students begin to develop anxiety towards math in middle school. That means at some point during their 5th grade year students begin to feel isolated and become frustrated with learning math. Many time teachers are so focused on students getting the right answer they forget to focus on the solving process that students got right. Duke suggests that teachers scaffold their math lessons so students can focus on the process rather than the right answer. Scaffolding lessons will allow students to slowly take control of their own learning, and develop confidence rather than anxiety towards math. Math is one of the few subject where teachers can see what went wrong. By showing their work students can work with the teacher to determine where they got lost in the solving process. This way students see it is not always about finding the right answer but learning out to correctly carry out the process

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Data carousels are much more beneficial to my current teaching environment. Data carousels require all staff to analyze data together as a team, which is something my school desperately needs. Because we are a Pre-K to 5 school and on such different schedules I rarely see any other teachers besides those in my hall. I certainly do not see their data. Data carousels would be a great way for my school to begin working together as a team to change areas of need. By analyzing school wide data teachers can improve areas other than student achievement. Data can incorporate absences, parent involvement, and behavior.  The data is used to get an overall picture of the school, and then broken down into smaller areas of need. More importantly, data carousels can create a steady growth of improvement over time.

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Other data that I find important to a school improvement plan is Student Learning Targets (SLTs).  My school uses this data collection to determine where individual students are in ELA and math.  A benchmark is given at the beginning of the year to determine what students need the most help in.  The SLTs are scored and they are shared with students, so students can receive feedback on what they are going to learn over the course of the year.   Teachers create intervention groups based on the SLTs.  What makes the SLTs useful to teachers is they break down the questions into individual standards so teachers know exactly what skills students need the most help in.  SLTs are given at the end of the first semester and at the end of the year.  Teachers use the data to show student growth and continued areas of need.. This data is analyzed with the assistant principal are targets are set for each student. For example, if a student score a 15% on the first test then they must gain 30% in order to show true growth. The goals are achievable for the students and teachers with makes the collected SLT data meaning

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M3. Professional Development and Student Learning

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M3. Professional Development and Student Learning

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In order to understand how students learn teachers must receive professional development in the same way.  Like student learning, teacher learning must be meaningful and valuable in order for true learning to take place. A goal of student learning is to create life long learners. Teachers must strive for the same thing. The must seek opportunities for growth. For example, a teacher can read research journals or voluntarily attend professional development that interests them. Students want to be challenged so they stay engaged. Teachers must also be challenged so they do not stick with the same old teaching methods. Student learning involves participating and creating dialogue. Teachers are no longer standing in front of the classroom delivering a one sided monologue. Students are engaged in conversations with their peers as the teachers ask prompting questions. Professional development should provide this kind of learning environment for teachers.

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M2. Most Important Step in School Improvement Plan

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M2. Most Important Step in School Improvement Plan

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While each of the seven steps is important as a whole, I believe diagnosing is the most important, because identifying the root causes of a school's problem means they can be fixed. When a school is diagnosing a problem they must make sure they are looking at multiple sources of data. This way they are getting the full picture rather than just a piece of the puzzle.

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M1. Factors that Impact the School Reform Process

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M1. Factors that Impact the School Reform Process

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1.       Choosing an Effective Curriculum

A major factor that is currently affecting my district is choosing an effective curriculum.  Choosing a curriculum can rip a school system apart, and that is why all stakeholders must be equally involved.  A transition to a new curriculum must be transparent.  The overall goal is to choose a curriculum that is authentic, has clear and measurable objectives, and engages students. Since student achievement is the ultimate goal then choosing an effective curriculum is critical for the school reform process.

2.       Teacher Collaboration/Professional Development

A school system must include teachers when they are creating a school reform plan.  Often school reform is a top down process which only includes some teachers.  Opportunities must be given to ALL teachers to express their ideas and concerns.  Many teachers reluctantly take part in the school reform process because the process was diluted from the beginning.  Providing professional development opportunities to teachers will make the changes less difficult.  The goals of school reform must by relevant, reasonable, and authentic.

3.       Community Involvement

As I stated before, my district is going through many changes.  I approach community involvement with caution.  In my experience I have either had no community involvement or too much.  My district changed our entire math curriculum because of parent complaints.  Parents took the matter to local state representatives who then took parent complaints to the state government.  Instead of including all stakeholders in the process my district decided to eradicate the contested math curriculum and begin a new process for choosing a curriculum.  Community involvement is crucial to school reform, but it needs to be a balanced relationship between all parties involved.