Sample School: Our ILT has started leading our first learning cycle on aligning the rigor of student work to the intended rigor of the learning target from our HQ curriculum. After doing some learning about teacher moves that maintain the intended rigor, teachers have co-planned two lessons from our HQ curriculum together during GLTs and are about to start peer observations to see each other's great work in action. Check out our PLP to see how we're building towards our Q1 PL Outcomes: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jJUsuQqP1DBnTQoIGtr0uOweuV3R3zXh5yC0r2D_Yyk/edit?gid=736987633#gid=736987633

-Deneen

We are now moving into the next phase of the cycle—recording and analyzing lessons that align with the unit. This will allow us to reflect on instructional choices, student engagement, and alignment to rigor in real time, while continuing to refine our practice together.

-Mireles

SY26 RigorWalk and LearningCycles - Google Slides

RAB 25-26 Deep Dives - Google Drive

GLM Interdependent Task.pdf - Google Drive

2025- 2026 RIGOR WALK RUBRIC 2.0 - Google Forms

RAB Peer-to-Peer Observations - Google Forms

Peer-to-Peer Rotation Schedule - Google Docs

We looked at our CIWP and from our Milestones we mapped out professional learning to include professional development for teachers to ensure the learning tasks are aligned to the learning goals to increase rigor and strengthen teacher pedagogy.

• Deep dive into unit plans – unpacking standards, essential questions, and assessments.

• Identify drivers of student success – clarifying what knowledge, skills, and understandings matter most.

• Plan with the end in mind – ensuring lessons build toward meaningful learning goals and measurable outcomes.

By anchoring planning in backwards design, we are positioning students for stronger achievement and growth, while also supporting teachers with clarity, focus, and coherence across their instruction.

- Jane A. Neil

Cycle 1 : Small Group Instruction

By the end of the cycle Teachers will be able to:

• Launch effective small groups grounded in standards and assessment

• Use data to monitor student progress and adjust groupings

• Foster student ownership and engagement in small group work

• Use work samples to drive instructional decisions and celebrate growth

The "Think-Pair-Share" strategy is what our focus is on this month as a great tool for encouraging student engagement and promoting critical thinking in the classroom. Our teachers adapted it in various ways to suit different teaching styles and content. As the ILT we presented in GLT meetings the process and provided real-world examples:

Think-Pair-Share Process:

1. Think:

   • What it is: The teacher poses a question or problem and gives students a few moments to think about their response on their own.

   • Teacher Tip: Ensure you give enough time for all students to gather their thoughts, especially in a diverse classroom. This can be anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes depending on the complexity of the question.

2. Pair:

   • What it is: After thinking, students pair up with a classmate to discuss their thoughts. This peer interaction helps them refine their ideas and hear different perspectives.

   • Teacher Tip: Pairing can be random, or you can strategically pair students based on abilities, interests, or diversity of thought. Sometimes mixing students with varying levels of knowledge can create a richer discussion.

3. Share:

   • What it is: Pairs then share their ideas or solutions with the whole class. This allows students to learn from one another and helps the teacher gauge understanding.

   • Teacher Tip: You can have a few pairs share with the whole class or, depending on time, you can ask a few individuals from each pair to report out.

We provided benefits for teachers in using the strategy:

• Foster Active Participation: Not all students are comfortable speaking in front of the entire class. Pairing them with a peer provides a lower-risk space to share ideas.

• Peer Learning: Students can explain concepts to each other in ways that might be easier to understand than the teacher’s explanation.

• Increased Engagement: This strategy breaks up the routine of lecture-style teaching, keeping students engaged by involving them in active learning.

• Formative Assessment: Teachers can listen in on pair discussions to assess student understanding in real time, making it easier to identify misconceptions or areas that need review.

How Teachers Demonstrated Using Think-Pair-Share:

• Our K-8 and Holistic teachers videoed themselves implementing the strategy.

• Peers Reviewed the video submissions and provided grows and glows.

• For Reflection, teaches stated what was challenging about the process and why.

• Teachers annotated their teacher's guides to determine opportunities for think-pair-share.

• Teachers engaged in PD around creating high quality questions that promote robust conversation.

* unit internalization. We are using the unit internalization as guide to plan lessons and drive instruction that will be rooted in results.

*equitable practices in both academics and SEL where teachers provide effective instruction using multiple sets of data.

*Joyful learning experiences are happening with student to student discourse and students sharing their learning

*Effective insturction.

This quarter we focused on unit internalization to ensure teachers understand the big ideas, standards, and goals for purposeful planning. We also categorized tasks (Retrieval, comprehension, analysis, and knowledge utilization) to keep instruction and assessments balanced and aligned to rigor.