Year 2 Focus
Improving Practice with Core Proposition 2:
Teachers Know the Subjects They Teach and How to Teach Those Subjects to Students
In the spring of 2019, Southern's instructional leadership team (principal, director of instruction, department chairs, and instructional coaches) discussed the progress made and opportunities to grow in Year 2. Each department chair and resource teacher reviewed the standards bundles that align with Core Proposition 2 for their content area (content knowledge, instructional practice, learning environment). Although there are best practices specific to each content area, there were 6 teacher best practices that appeared in each set of standards. These became our focus point for the Year 2 work.
We maintained and refined all of our systems from last year: improved professional learning (Best Practice Tuesdays and weekly embedded PD), re-imagined PLCs working within the Helix Cycle, and a regular loop of formative feedback for teachers involving qualitative and quantitative feedback. In our attempts to "Be Better," though, we approached those systems through the following lenses:
We maintained and refined all of our systems from last year: improved professional learning (Best Practice Tuesdays and weekly embedded PD), re-imagined PLCs working within the Helix Cycle, and a regular loop of formative feedback for teachers involving qualitative and quantitative feedback. In our attempts to "Be Better," though, we approached those systems through the following lenses:
New Lenses for Year 2
Teacher and Student Best PracticesThe 6 Teacher Best Practices are the focus of our professional development plan this year. We identified look-fors across content areas at our summer retreat, and departments dig in to what the best practices look like in each discipline during monthly Best Practice Tuesdays. In embedded PD, teachers dive deeper by looking at the best practices from a PLC and individual level. The Student Best Practices are the evidence of Teacher Best Practice that is visible in classrooms. Teachers selected a Teacher Best Practice as the focus of their 2019-2020 Professional Growth Plan
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Building-Wide Cognitive CoachingLast year, all resource teachers at SHS were trained as Cognitive Coaches. Over the summer, the administration was trained, as well. This means that as a building, all teacher support comes from a coaching mindset first, moving into evaluation only when necessary. First year teachers having coaching conversations with their resource teacher every two weeks, second and third year teachers have coaching conversations every month, and all teachers with four or more years of teaching experience have coaching conversations every 9 weeks. All teachers have coaching conversations with their evaluating administrator every 9 weeks.
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Early Career CohortSouthern has long had a successful first-year teacher support program. We realized, however, that teachers still need focused support after year one. We created an Early Career Cohort of teachers in their second and third years to support them as they refine their practice. The work of this cohort is grounded the NBCT Architecture of Accomplished Teaching, the backbone of intentional instructional design. They reflect on and evaluate their own teaching and that of their peers, looking for ways they can continue to grow as accomplished educators.
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